Victorian Parables

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Description

The familiar stories of the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, andLazarus andthe rich man were part of the cultural currency in the nineteenth century, and Victorian authors drew upon the figures and plots of biblical parables for a variety of authoritative, interpretive, and subversive effects. However, scholars of parables in literature have often overlooked the 19th-century novel, assuming that realism bears no relation to the subversive, iconoclastic genre of parable. In this book Susan E. Coln shows thatauthors such as Charles Dickens, Margaret Oliphant, and Charlotte Yonge appreciated the power of parables to deliver an ethical charge that was as unexpected as it was disruptive to conventional moral ideas. Against the common assumption that the genres of realism and parable are polar opposites, this study explores how Victorian novels, despite their length, verisimilitude, and multi-plot complexity, can become parables in ways that imitate, interpret, and challenge their biblical sources.

Reviews

'Susan Coln offers an original and highly accessible account of the way in which these subversive gospel stories worked at an ethical level to challenge the reading practices of Victorian readers. She provides equally assured guidance both through theoretical issues and in exemplary readings of works by Charlotte Yonge, Margaret Oliphant and Charles Dickens.' -- Professor Elisabeth Jay, Associate Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities, Oxford Brookes University, UK
'This is a very satisfying book indeed.So much that other scholars do not see or get wrong Susan E. Coln observes and gets right.Victorian Parables not only offers insightful readings of Charlotte Yonge, Margaret Oliphant, and Charles Dickens, it defines and illuminates the genre of parables in a way that it would do literary scholars, theologians, and students of the Bible well simply to follow with humility and gratitude.' -- Timothy Larsen, McManis Professor of Christian Thought, Wheaton College, Illinois, USA
Victorian Parables applies theories of biblical hermeneutics to historically contextualized readings of Victorian novels in a clear, fresh and provocative way which overcomes conventional critical dichotomies opposing religious belief and novelistic realism. Coln's book represents a significant contribution to the post-secular interpretation of Victorian culture.' -- Dr Gavin Budge, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Colon insists on a rhetorically and historically precise understanding of parable as a literary form She focuses especially on realist novels, which she, following Andrew H. Miller, sees as ethically freighted in a way that has yet to be adequately discussed. Her careful study does much to correct this error. -- Victorian Studies * Victorian Studies *

Author Bio

Susan E. Coln is Associate Professor of Literature in the Honors College at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, USA. She is the author of The Professional Ideal in the Victorian Novel: The Works of Trollope, Disraeli, George Eliot, and Gaskell (Palgrave, 2007).