Gossip and Subversion in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction: Echo's Economies

Gordon, J.

Jan Gordon proposes that a reviled communicational 'interest' in gossip and its purveyors be given its proper due in the development of the novel in Britain. Commencing with Sir Walter Scott's historically persecuted (but economically and politically necessary) androgynous voices in caves and concluding with Oscar Wilde's premature celebration of gossip at the very moment it is transformed from public opinion to public judgment, the author finds gossip to be both deforming and shaping nineteenth century 'letters' in surprising ways. Like the ignominious orphan-figure of nineteenth-century fiction, gossip is the 'unacknowledged reproduction' searching for a political antecedence which might lend a legitimacy to its often discontinuous testimony, for a culture historically resistant to obtrusive voices.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: 1997-02-11

Format: Hardcover

ISBN-13: 9780312161651

DOI: 10.1057/9780230376946

Dimensions: 216cm x140cm

Pages: 444