Michael Ragussis re-reads the novelistic tradition by arguing the acts of naming--bestowing, revealing, or earning a name; taking away, hiding, or prohibiting a name; slandering, or protecting and serving it--lie at the center of fictional plots from the 18th century to the present. Against the background of philosophic approaches to naming, Acts of Naming reveals the ways in which systems of naming are used to appropriate characters in novels as diverse as Clarissa, Fanny Hill, Oliver Twist, Pierre, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Remembrance of Things Past, and Lolita, and identifies unnaming and renaming as the locus of power in the family's plot to control the child, and more particularly, to rape the daughter. His analysis also treats additional works by Cooper, Bront�, Hawthorne, Eliot, Twain, Conrad, and Faulkner, extending the concept of the naming plot to reimagine the traditions of the novel, comparing American and British plots, female and male plots, inheritance and seduction plots, and so on. Acts of Naming ends with a theoretical exploration of the "magical" power of naming in different eras and in different, even competing, forms of discourse.
| ||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"An engrossing and powerful book of real importance."--James R. Kincaid, University of Colorado at Boulder
"Continuously lively, even eloquent at times, and it offers rigorous and original readings of familiar nineteenth-century novels."--Victorian Studies
About the Author
Michael Ragussis is at Georgetown University.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet.
|
|||
|
Video reviews
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
(learn more)
apostolic charity, naming plots, guilty name, family discourse, novelistic tradition, allegorical names Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Oliver Twist, Bleak House, The Scarlet Letter, Fanny Hill, The Mill, Lady Dedlock, The Naming Plots of Fiction, Clarissa Harlowe, George Eliot, Anna Howe, Annabel Leigh, Name Lost, Pierre Glendinning, Name Found, American Myth of the Name Transcended, Gilberte Swann, Angel Clare, The Appointed Time, Maggie Tulliver, Marian Evans, Miss Barbary, The Recognition, The Custom-House, Old Testament, Dolores Haze Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
apostolic charity, naming plots, guilty name, family discourse, novelistic tradition, allegorical names Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Oliver Twist, Bleak House, The Scarlet Letter, Fanny Hill, The Mill, Lady Dedlock, The Naming Plots of Fiction, Clarissa Harlowe, George Eliot, Anna Howe, Annabel Leigh, Name Lost, Pierre Glendinning, Name Found, American Myth of the Name Transcended, Gilberte Swann, Angel Clare, The Appointed Time, Maggie Tulliver, Marian Evans, Miss Barbary, The Recognition, The Custom-House, Old Testament, Dolores Haze Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
14
books
cite this book:
See all 14 books citing this book
- The Language of the Heart, 1600-1750 (New Cultural Studies) by Robert A. Erickson in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Penelope Voyages: Women and Travel in the British Literary Tradition (Reading Women Writing) by Karen Lawrence on page 54, and Back Matter
- Reading Adoption: Family and Difference in Fiction and Drama by Marianne Novy in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Sex Scandal: The Private Parts of Victorian Fiction (Series Q) by William A. Cohen on page 150, and Back Matter
- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne in Back Matter
See all 14 books citing this book
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
