Romantic Friendship in Victorian Literature (The Nineteenth Century Series)

Description:

"Carolyn Oulton recovers the strategies nineteenth-century authors used to justify the ideal of same-sex romantic friendship and the anxieties these strategies reveal. Informed by recent insights into the erotic potential of such relationships, but focused on romantic friendship as an independent and fully formulated ideal, Oulton departs from other critics who view romantic friendship as either nebulous and culturally naive or an invocation of homoerotic responsiveness." "By considering both male and female friendships, Oulton uncovers surprising parallels between them in novels and poetry by authors such as Dickens, Tennyson, Disraeli, Charlotte Bronte, and Braddon. Oulton also examines conduct manuals, periodicals, and religious treatises, tracing developments from mid-century to the fin de siecle, when romantic friendship first came under serious attack. Her book is a challenge to those who view mid-Victorian England, existing in a state of blissful pre-Freudian innocence, as unproblematically accommodating of passionate same-sex relationships."--BOOK JACKET.

subjects: English literature, history and criticism, 19th century,  Friendship in literature,  Love in literature,  Gender identity in literature,  Homosexuality in literature,  Lesbians in literature,  English literature,  History and criticism,  Male friendship in literature,  Female friendship in literature,  Lesbianism in literature,  Littérature anglaise,  Histoire et critique,  Amitié dans la littérature,  Amitié masculine dans la littérature,  Amitié féminine dans la littérature,  Amour dans la littérature,  Identité sexuelle dans la littérature,  Homosexualité dans la littérature,  Lesbianisme dans la littérature