Anthony Trollope's Late Style

Download or read book Anthony Trollope's Late Style written by Van Dam Frederik Van Dam and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-19 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study focuses on Anthony Trollope's stylistic innovations in relation to Victorian liberalismIn his biography of William Makepeace Thackeray, Anthony Trollope posits the ideal of a man without style: 'I hold that gentleman to be the best dressed whose dress no one observes. I am not sure but that the same may be said of an author's written language'. Trollope's own appearance, unlike his written language, did not pass without observation, however. A contemporary poet recollects that he was 'hirsute and taurine of aspect'. This study unravels this paradox. It disentangles the many threads in Trollope's ostensibly transparent writing and reassembles the political and intellectual fabric that they weave, thus showing how Trollope's language exceeds and questions the concepts provided by contemporary ideologies.Key Features:Shows how Trollope's stylistic peculiarities perform his inflection of Victorian liberalismReads Victorian literature through the lens of German (post-)Romantic thinkers such as Goethe and Walter BenjaminPresents a panorama of Victorian liberalism in its literary, intellectual, and political contextExamines the writings from the last decade of Trollope's life that have received only scant critical attention, such as his novellas and his biographies