The Gentleman in Trollope: Individuality and Moral Conduct [Hardcover]

Shirley Robin Letwin (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 315 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press; First Edition edition (March 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674347552
• ISBN-13: 978-0674347557
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,503,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding Trollope, February 6, 2005

By 

Little Dorrit "ldorrit" (WA state) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The gentleman in Trollope: Individuality and moral conduct (Paperback)

If you are a fan of Trollope's or just discovering his gifts, you couldn't do better than to read this excellent treatise by Shirley Robin for you'll find yourself 'seeing' so much more in his work and appreciating just how deeply meaningful it is.

Trollope never introduced a character without intending them to represent a type of individual we all meet and then also introducing another who was an opposite to that character representing another 'choice' the other character could have taken, but didn't.

This is a book that takes some concentration to fully appreciate, but it is well worth the effort, for you'll then be able to read Trollope's many books and find all the treasures he left there for you.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Manners as Morals, February 28, 2011

By 

G. Charles Steiner - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The gentleman in Trollope: Individuality and moral conduct (Paperback)

This book is so persuasive in its relentless examination of the meaning and definition of the "gentleman" throughout all of Trollope's oeuvre that it seems to serve as a true reliquary for what constitutes the philosophy of the virtuous life in Trollope's fiction, much as Sarah Emsley's work about the virtues is made philosophically manifest for Jane Austen's fiction.

While the author clearly points up the difference between outward manners of the worldly or merely aristocratic gentleman and the true gentleman's inner morality and inner aristocracy, she may have overly romanticized the essential practicality and pragmatism of Trollope such that she imagines Trollope portraying in some of his main characters a kind of nobility that is nowhere truly visible -- as is the case, for example, with the main characters of "The Way We Live Now." As well, the notion of the gentleman in the "true sense of the word" (Ciceronian) seems to be non-existent in "The Prime Minister."

The author refreshingly makes the assertion that Trollope's "gentleman" is not a specifically masculine concept, but it seems she thoroughly researched only those novels by Trollope that fit her thesis, while she avoids or rejects the remainder of Trollope's novels which offer less than optimum examples of her thesis.

Still, this work is one of a kind in terms of its revelation and examination of the historical content of a concept that no longer has any validity in the twenty-first century.