The Excellence of Falsehood

The Excellence of Falsehood
Author :
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages : 264
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780813158921
ISBN-13 : 0813158923
Rating : 4/5 (923 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Excellence of Falsehood by : Deborah L. Ross

Download or read book The Excellence of Falsehood written by Deborah L. Ross and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-10-17 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The only excellence of falsehood... is its resemblance to truth," proclaims a clergyman in Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote. He argues that romances are bad art; novels, he implies, are better. This clergyman's remarks—repeating what literary and moral authorities had been saying since the late seventeenth century—are central to Deborah Ross's discussion of romance characteristics in English women's novels. Aphra Behn, Delariviere Manley, Eliza Haywood, Charlotte Lennox, Fanny Burney, Ann Radcliffe, and Jane Austen did not take the clergyman's advice to heart. To them, the "falsehood" of romance was by no means self-evident, nor was the superior "excellence" of the novel. In theory, many of them accepted the distinction, but their works combined aspects of the romance and the novel in ways that brought them into conflict with the critical establishment. The texts discussed here illustrate a process of development both in the novel and in the conditions of women's lives. Tensions between romance and realism enabled women writers to question official versions of reality and to measure life against a romance ideal. By altering readers' perceptions and judgments, these authors gradually altered the reality that novels "resemble" and set up new combinations of romance and realism for future writers. This give-and-take between fiction and life is seen most dramatically in the way a "romantic" notion gradually comes to be treated in novels as both "real" and right. Ross follows one such notion—that women have matrimonial preferences—to the point where romance and reality merge. Ross's study brings to light an important part of the history of the novel not yet incorporated in theories and histories of the genre.


The Excellence of Falsehood Related Books

The Excellence of Falsehood
Language: en
Pages: 264
Authors: Deborah L. Ross
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-10-17 - Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"The only excellence of falsehood... is its resemblance to truth," proclaims a clergyman in Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote. He argues that romances are b
The Excellence of Falsehood
Language: en
Pages: 276
Authors: Deborah Ross
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 1991 - Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Romans
Language: en
Pages: 369
Authors: Charles Hodge
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 1994 - Publisher: Crossway

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Takes readers through this epistle one passage at a time, providing commentary on the themes set forth by Paul in Romans. A Crossway Classic Commentary.
Brahmo Dharma of Maharshi Debendranath Tagore
Language: en
Pages: 272
Authors: Debendranātha Ṭhākura
Categories:
Type: BOOK - Published: 1928 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The International Fiction Review
Language: en
Pages: 90
Authors:
Categories: Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 1993 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK