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Hatred and Civility: The Antisocial Life in Victorian England
Hatred and Civility The Antisocial Life in Victorian England Author:Christopher Lane To understand hatred and incivility in today's world, argues Christopher Lane, we should start with Victorian fiction. Although the word "Victorian" generally brings to mind images of prudish sexuality and well-heeled snobbery, above all it has become synonymous with self-sacrifice, earnest devotion, and moral rectitude. Yet this idealized visio... more »n of Victorian England is surprisingly scarce in the period's literature--and in its journalism, sermons, poems, and plays--where villains, hypocrites, murderers, and cheats of all types abound. Hatred and Civility challenges the misperception that nineteenth-century England was a sociable and ethical society. Drawing on both popular and little-known works, Lane argues that this romantic notion has obscured the range and intensity of antisocial dynamics in Victorian culture, including the prevalence of misanthropy and schadenfreude. Lane explores these depths of hatred, pointing out numerous contradictions between the gracious, refined society that England wanted to be and its harsh, often cruel reality. Through lively readings of works by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontė, George Eliot, Robert Browning, and Joseph Conrad, Lane reveals how many of their characters represent some of the principal hostilities that Victorians nursed toward humanity, how these writers betrayed the social philosophies of the time, and how misanthropy--once a means of conveying intellectual integrity and a justified disdain of society's excesses--came to be viewed as immoral, even quasi-criminal. An original and surprising look at the past, Hatred and Civility shows that today's pessimists, criminals, and fanatics have many precursors in our supposedly moral ancestors. (With 26 illustrations.)« less