Adam Bede, Realism, the Past, and Readers in 1859

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_article_2891
dc.title	Adam Bede, Realism, the Past, and Readers in 1859
dc.contributor.author	Marshall Gail
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.type	Research Article
dc.language.iso	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/english-literature/2019/1/adam-bede-realism-the-past-and-readers-in-1859/
dc.description.abstract	This article gives an account of the immediate publication context of George Eliot’s first novel, Adam Bede, in terms of competing opportunities for leisure, anxieties about the reading of fiction, the publishing industry, and the social and political context of February 1859. It examines the way in which the novel engages with its first readers, specifically through its treatment of the experience of reading fiction, and the ways in which Adam Bede differs from readers’ previous experiences. The article argues that the novel’s impact is determined by its engagement with the past of its setting, and by the ways it which it encourages a historically-nuanced appreciation in its readers, and that these factors are integral to Eliot’s articulating a new form of realist fiction.
dc.relation.ispartof	English Literature
dc.relation.ispartof	Vol. 6 \| December 2019
dc.issued	2020-03-09
dc.dateAccepted	2019-11-21
dc.dateSubmitted	2019-11-14
dc.identifier.issn
dc.identifier.eissn	2420-823X
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/EL/2420-823X/2019/01/002
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Adam Bede
dc.subject	Adam Bede
dc.subject	George Eliot
dc.subject	George Eliot
dc.subject	Geraldine Jewsbury
dc.subject	Geraldine Jewsbury
dc.subject	Mudie’s leisure
dc.subject	Mudie’s leisure
dc.subject	Popular theatre
dc.subject	Popular theatre
dc.subject	Queen Victoria
dc.subject	Queen Victoria
dc.subject	Realism
dc.subject	Realism

Research Article
open access peer reviewed

Adam Bede, Realism, the Past, and Readers in 1859

Gail Marshall University of Reading, UK

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abstract

This article gives an account of the immediate publication context of George Eliot’s first novel, Adam Bede, in terms of competing opportunities for leisure, anxieties about the reading of fiction, the publishing industry, and the social and political context of February 1859. It examines the way in which the novel engages with its first readers, specifically through its treatment of the experience of reading fiction, and the ways in which Adam Bede differs from readers’ previous experiences. The article argues that the novel’s impact is determined by its engagement with the past of its setting, and by the ways it which it encourages a historically-nuanced appreciation in its readers, and that these factors are integral to Eliot’s articulating a new form of realist fiction.

Published

March 9, 2020

Accepted

Nov. 21, 2019

Submitted

Nov. 14, 2019

Language

Keywords: Realism • Geraldine Jewsbury • George Eliot • Adam Bede • Popular theatre • Mudie’s leisure • Queen Victoria

permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/EL/2420-823X/2019/01/002

Copyright: © 2019 Gail Marshall. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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