Table Of ContentTHE UNIVERSITY IN MODERN FICTION
Also by Janice Rossen
AGING AND GENDER IN LITERATURE: Studies in
Creativity (co-editor with Anne M. Wyatt-Brown)
INDEPENDENT WOMEN: The Function of Gender in the
Novels of Barbara Pym (editor)
PHILIP LARKIN: His Life's Work
* THE WORLD OF BARBARA PYM
WRITERS OF THE OLD SCHOOL: British Novelists of
the 1930s (co-editor with Rosemary M. Colt)
* Also from the same publishers
The University in
Modern Fiction
When Power is Academic
Janice Rossen
Senior Research Fellow
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre
University of Texas at Austin
150th YEAR
M
5t. Martin's Press
© Janice Rossen 1993
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1993
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
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First published in Great Britain 1993 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG212XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-22848-5 ISBN 978-1-349-22846-1 (eBook)
DOl 10.1007/978-1-349-22846-1
First published in the United States of America 1993 by
Scholarly and Reference Division,
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-09585-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rossen, Janice, 1955-
The university in modern fiction: when power is academic / Janice
Rossen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-09585-7
1. Education, Higher, in literature. 2. Universities and colleges
in literature. 3. Fiction-History and criticism. I. Title.
PN52.R67 1993
809.3'9355----dc20 92-46153
CIP
University in Modern Fiction
For Lucky Bill (now a professor)
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
1 Exclusion: Outside University Walls 11
2 Resistance: Women at Oxbridge 32
3 Marginalization: Men of the Lower Classes 56
4 Enclosure: Undergraduates 93
5 Power Politics: Masters, Fellows and Dons 119
6 Competition: Scholars and the Global Campus 139
7 Creativity: Novelists in Academe 171
Notes 189
Index 199
vii
Acknowl edgements
I am first of all indebted to my friends who read drafts of the
manuscript in progress: James D. Garrison, Charles Romney, and
(as always) John Augustine. Warm thanks go also to John P. Farrell,
who found resourceful ways out of endless knots and tangles.
Many others have contributed to my thinking on the subject of aca-
demics, and I am especially grateful to Guilland Sutherland, Claire
M. Tylee, James Booth, David Braun, Tim Rogers, Bart Willis,
Robert J. Ray and Noreen Crawford. Like myself, they have all suf-
fered problematic relationships with academe, the entire crew of us
having been in and out of various institutions of higher learning for
most of our adult lives. lowe them much; they have been compan-
ions on the quest.
I am also grateful to David Bevan and the Rodopi Press, who
allowed me to include portions of my essay on Dorothy L. Sayers
from their University Fiction volume in the chapter on women at
Oxbridge.
Most of all, I want to thank my husband, William Rossen, who
has been knit up with my academic career since our days in gradu-
ate school together. His passion for knowledge has inspired me; his
love has nourished me. This book is for him, and for all the times
he has made me laugh.
viii
Introduction
The way in which academic life is portrayed in fiction creates a
complex intersection among a number of forces. A primary issue
which these novels engage is the interplay between fiction and fact:
we assume University novels to be realistic because they are based
on an actual institution, often enough on a real University in a real
place. As such, they are important because they are widely b~lieved
by their readers to constitute an accurate representation of aca-
demic life, whether they do so or not; and what remains true is that
these novels are heavily influenced by the subject itself, which
exerts a strong pull on the novel form. Mortimer Proctor's excellent
study of University fiction in English literature makes this the basis
of his reason for having undertaken such a survey. He concludes
that: "the university novel, in the long course of its development,
has been shaped more than anything else by the state of the English
universities". Given the fact that the University holds an important
place in our culture, it therefore follows that we should give atten-
tion to fiction about it because of its self-proclaimed connection
with actual institutions; as Proctor goes on to observe: "As a literary
genre, it has always reflected conditions within Oxford and
Cambridge far more closely than it has followed any literary trends
or movement."l In his survey of British academic novels after the
Second World War, Ian Carter takes up in terms of chronology
where Proctor leaves off and confirms Proctor's earlier assessment,
noting that most novels are set at either Oxford or Cambridge, in a
way that is far out of proportion to their actual number among
British universities. Still, novelists are not concerned with sociologi-
cal accuracy or representative samplings so much as they are to
write novels which will be true to the ideals and anxieties of their
times, and which will tap into their readers' collective fantasies
about academe. In reflecting a high value for Oxbridge, modern
fiction writers affirm a fact of social history in holding Oxford and
Cambridge Universities to be preeminent in prestige. And this
strikes at the root of what fiction is and why we read it. These
writers either wish to identify with Oxbridge themselves, and thus
to appropriate its mana by boasting of their insiders' knowledge, or
they assume that their readers will wish to do so vicariously
through their novels.
J. Rossen The University in Modern Fiction © Janice Rossen 1993
