Realism, Representation, And the Arts in Nineteenth-century Literature

by Alison Byerly

• ISBN13: 9780521025348
• ISBN10: 0521025346
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-03-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book examines the representation of a variety of arts--primarily painting, theater, and music--within the work of major nineteenth-century novelists. It charts a historical progression, from Romantic poetry, through mid-century Realism, to Aestheticism, showing how authors used references to other forms of art to illuminate their own aesthetic ideals. Examining the aesthetic theory and cultural practice of different arts, Alison Byerly demonstrates the importance of artistic representation to the development of Victorian Realism.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The picturesque aesthetic and the natural art of song

2. Masterpiece theatres: art as spectacle in William Thackeray and Charlotte Brontë

3. George Eliot's hierarchy of representation

4. Art works: Thomas Hardy and the labor of creation

Coda: aestheticism: the erasure of the real

Notes

Bibliography

Index.