1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910780815403321

Autore

Chase Karen <1952->

Titolo

The spectacle of intimacy [[electronic resource] ] : a public life for the Victorian family / / Karen Chase and Michael Levenson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Princeton, N.J., : Princeton University Press, c2000

ISBN

1-282-30384-8

9786612303845

1-4008-3112-1

Edizione

[Core Textbook]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (263 p.)

Collana

Literature in history

Altri autori (Persone)

LevensonMichael H <1951-> (Michael Harry)

Disciplina

941.081

Soggetti

English literature - 19th century - History and criticism

Home in literature

Literature and history - Great Britain - History - 19th century

Public opinion - Great Britain - History - 19th century

Privacy - Great Britain - History - 19th century

Families - Great Britain - History - 19th century

Families in literature

Great Britain History Victoria, 1837-1901

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- CONTENTS -- ILLUSTRATIONS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- Introduction: The Trouble with Families -- PART ONE: The Political Theater of Domesticity -- PART TWO: Beneath the Banner of Home -- PART THREE: Was That an Angel in the House? -- PART FOUR: The Architecture of Comfort and Ruin -- PART FIVE: The Sensations of Respectability -- EPILOGUE: Between Manual and Spectacle -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Love of home life, the intimate moments a family peacefully enjoyed in seclusion, had long been considered a hallmark of English character even before the Victorian era. But the Victorians attached unprecedented importance to domesticity, romanticizing the family in every medium from novels to government reports, to the point where actual families felt anxious and the public developed a fierce appetite



for scandal. Here Karen Chase and Michael Levenson explore how intimacy became a spectacle and how this paradox energized Victorian culture between 1835 and 1865. They tell a story of a society continually perfecting the forms of private pleasure and yet forever finding its secrets exposed to view. The friction between the two conditions sparks insightful discussions of authority and sentiment, empire and middle-class politics. The book recovers neglected episodes of this mid-century drama: the adultery trial of Caroline Norton and the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne; the Bedchamber Crisis of the young Queen Victoria; the Bloomer craze of the 1850's; and Robert Kerr's influential treatise, celebrating the ideal of the English Gentleman's House. The literary representation of household life--in Dickens, Tennyson, Ellis, and Oliphant, among others--is placed in relation to such public spectacles as the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill of 1848, the controversy over divorce in the years 1854-1857, and the triumphant return of Florence Nightingale from the Crimea. These colorful incidents create a telling new portrait of Victorian family life, one that demands a fundamental rethinking of the relation between public and private spheres.