1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910136646003321

Autore

Castle Terry

Titolo

Clarissa's Ciphers : Meaning and Disruption in Richardson's Clarissa  / / Terry Castle

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cornell University Press, 1982

Ithaca, N.Y. : , : Cornell University Press, , 1982

©1982

ISBN

9781501706936

1501706934

9781501706943

1501706942

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (206 pages)

Disciplina

823/.6

Soggetti

Reader-response criticism

Rape victims in literature

Women and literature - England - History - 18th century

Epistolary fiction, English - History and criticism

Anthologies

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Bibliography: p. 189-196.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 . Clarissa by Halves -- 2. Discovering Reading -- 3. Reading the Letter, Reading the World -- 4. Interrupting "Miss Clary" -- 5. Denatured Signs -- 6. The Voyage Out -- 7. The Death of the Author: Clarissa's Coffin -- 8. The Death of the Author: Richardson and the Reader -- 9. Epilogue: The Reader Lives -- Bibliographic Postscript -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

As Samuel Richardson's 'exemplar to her sex,' Clarissa in the eponymous novel published in 1748 is the paradigmatic female victim. In Clarissa's Ciphers, Terry Castle delineates the ways in which, in a world where only voice carries authority, Clarissa is repeatedly silenced, both metaphorically and literally. A victim of rape, she is first a victim of hermeneutic abuse. Drawing on feminist criticism and hermeneutic theory, Castle examines the question of authority in the novel. By



tracing the patterns of abuse and exploitation that occur when meanings are arbitrarily and violently imposed, she explores the sexual politics of reading.