This book simultaneously examines the specific theoretical issues raised by Elizabeth Gaskell's use of characterization in her shorter fiction, and addresses the larger question of how literary critics ought to use theory. The text gives a history of Judith Butler's theory of performativity and the uptake of that theory in literary criticism, and also provides detailed close reading of Gaskell's fiction-both frequently examined texts like
Cranford,
Mary Barton, and
Wives and Daughters, and some that are less often studied, such as "Lizzie Leigh" and
Cousin Phillis. The book argues that as theory becomes naturalized into the vocabulary of literary scholars, it often becomes more optimistic and less specific. In discussing the naturalization of theory exemplified by the application of performativity to Gaskell, the book advances general principles on the use of theory. It can be read as scholarship or used as a textbook in literary methods courses.
1. Introduction: The Paradox of Subjectivity and the Naturalization of Theory.- 2. Strict Performativity and the Limits of Resignification in Stories and Novels.- 3. Turning the Glacier: Modernity and Complex Identity in the Novellas.- 4. Conclusion: Principles for the Uses of Theory.
Melissa Schaub is Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, USA, where she teaches courses on British and women's literature. Her research has focused primarily on Victorian novels and other work by British women writers. She is the author of
Middlebrow Feminism in Classic British Detective Fiction: The Female Gentleman (Palgrave, 2013).
