Available online
Description
In this radio programme Professor Louis James examines the social status and function of the novel in the Victorian period.
In this radio programme Professor Louis James examines the social status and function of the novel in the Victorian period.
| Module code and title: | A102, An arts foundation course |
|---|---|
| Item code: | A102; 13 |
| First transmission date: | 1987 |
| Published: | 1987 |
| Rights Statement: | Rights owned or controlled by The Open University |
| Restrictions on use: | This material can be used in accordance with The Open University conditions of use. A link to the conditions can be found at the bottom of all OUDA web pages. |
| Duration: | 00:17:42 |
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| Producer: | Tony Coe |
| Contributor: | Louis James |
| Publisher: | BBC Open University |
| Keyword(s): | Mudie's Select Circulating Library; Victorian Novels |
| Footage description: | In this radio programme Professor Louis James examines the social status and function of the novel in the Victorian period. In doing so he reveals the enormous growth of the novel reading public and the very large number of Victorian novels. He also indicates how Victorians used the novel for talking to each other, for entertainment and for discussing a variety of contemporary issues. Finally he shows how knowledge of the Victorian novel reader deepens our ability to read the Victorian novel itself and see what Raymond Williams calls its structure of emotion as part of a shared culture. More specifically he examines how reading was supposed to be an institution of the Victorian family, and how family reading not only affected the way novelists wrote but also placed strict limits on what publishers were willing to print. Professor James concentrates on the influence of the circulating libraries - in particular Charles Edward Mudie's Select Circulating Library - a central and influential force in Victorian reading, and he ends by identifying the trend towards 'realism' in the novel at the end of the century, and how the traditionalists saw this as immoral. |
| Master spool number: | MKL727_86YA0136LJO |
| Production number: | 86YA0136LJO |
| Available to public: | no |
