What the Victorian history of self-help reveals about the myth of
individualism. Stories of hardworking characters who lift
themselves from rags to riches abound in the Victorian era. From
the popularity of such stories, it is clear that the Victorians
valorized personal ambition in ways that previous generations had
not. In Material Ambitions, Rebecca Richardson explores this
phenomenon in light of the under-studied reception history of
Samuel Smiles's 1859 publication, Self-Help: With Illustrations of
Character, Conduct, and Perseverance. A compilation of vignettes
about captains of industry, artists, and inventors who persevered
through failure and worked tirelessly to achieve success in their
respective fields, Self-Help links individual ambition to the
growth of the nation. Contextualizing Smiles's work in a tradition
of Renaissance self-fashioning, eighteenth-century advice books,
and inspirational biography, Richardson argues that the burgeoning
self-help genre of the Victorian era offered a narrative structure
that linked individual success with collective success in a
one-to-one relationship. Advocating for a broader cultural account
of the ambitious hero narrative, Richardson argues that reading
these biographies and self-help texts alongside fictional accounts
of driven people complicates the morality tale that writers like
Smiles took pains to invoke. In chapters featuring the works of
Harriet Martineau, Dinah Craik, Thackeray, Trollope, and Miles
Franklin, Richardson demonstrates that Victorian fiction dramatized
ambition by suggesting where it runs up against the limits of an
individual's energy and ability, where it turns into competition,
or where it risks upsetting a socio-ecological system of finite
resources. The upward mobility plots of John Halifax, Gentleman or
Vanity Fair suggest the dangers of zero-sum thinking, particularly
evidenced by contemporary preoccupations with Malthusian and
Darwinian discourses. Intertwining the methodologies of disability
studies and ecocriticism, Material Ambitions persuasively unmasks
the longstanding myth that ambitious individualism can overcome
disadvantageous systematic and structural conditions.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
(1)
