Votary,Vixen and Vulgarian: German governesses and English Domesticity in Novels by Charlotte Yonge,Charlotte Brontë and Mary Braddon

ABSTRACT

Among the most amusing vignettes in Victorian novels are German governesses created by Charlotte Yonge, Charlotte Brontë and Mary Braddon. Fräulein Ohnglaube is a votary who believes in ghosts. Fräulein Müller is a vixen with a secret ambition, and Fräulein Braun is a vulgarian who scoffs two breakfasts of beef and beer. All are depicted as potential threats to the values and norms of the English ‘cult’ of domesticity.This paper argues that these authors wished to preserve and celebrate ‘pure‘ English domesticity . Their negative representations of German governesses reveal how thoroughly English and anti-cosmopolitan were their conceptualisations of domestic life.     

Book Reviews

During the 40-odd years that the Alsatian-born, French-trained artist Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg lived in Britain, he became a triple celebrity. A decade after his migration to Britain in 1771 his achievements as a picturesque landscape artist were celebrated in election to the Royal Academy. During the same period he also worked for David Garrick at Drury Lane theatre as the highest-paid scenographer in Britain. Critics hailed him as a genius for revolutionizing Britain's dull staging traditions along the spectacular and naturalistic lines of France's Giovanni Servandoni. Finally, as the creator in 1781–82 of a pioneering commercial moving picture show, the Eidophusikon, he was acclaimed by leading arbiters of artistic taste such as Reynolds and Gainsborough. Well-heeled West End crowds flocked to performances, and the Eidophusikon was widely imitated in Europe, the United States, and the British colonies.

Yet de Loutherbourg's professional and social standing remained surprisingly fragile. At periodic intervals he was accused publicly of charlatanry, or its British equivalent, quackery. This damaging smear surfaced on each of the three occasions that de Loutherbourg shifted career direction. And though he managed to redeem himself on each occasion, it was only by making serious artistic and professional compromises. In this sense, the spectre of quackery haunted and shaped Philippe de Loutherbourg's British career, making him a fascinating test-case of quackery's shifting valencies at the dawn of the modern industrial age.     

怀疑与徘徊——乔治·爱略特的人文主义思想探析

19世纪英国的人文主义有两个主要倾向,一是对神学的否定,一是对物质主义的批判。前一种倾向在乔治·爱略特的思想发展和小说创作中体现得非常明显,可以说是维多利亚时代人文主义的一个缩影。她小说中的两位女主人公反映着在宗教危机的大背景下,个人如何得以摆脱由之带来的焦虑和绝望,实现更完美的人生。她对神学产生怀疑,但在表达自己的思想时并没有做出直白的批判。爱略特创作中的怀疑与徘徊也是维多利亚时代知识分子的一个特征。     

Games of character: team sports,games, and character development in Victorian public schools, 1850–1900

This article examines the ascendance of team sports as tools of “character building” in British Victorian public schools in the second half of the nineteenth century. The focus of this enquiry is the commonly overlooked pedagogical innovation underlying this process – the utilisation of organised games as educational tools. Relying on Roger Caillois' delineation of the unique qualities of game playing, I explore how team sports’ game qualities shaped their educational function and perception in Victorian public schools. Broadly stated, these game qualities enabled team sports to function as an ideal site for shaping on-court behaviour, while limiting their long-term effect on student conduct. Two central limitations of the Victorian application of game playing are pointed out. First, offering an organised model of play, team sports increased adult control over students’ play patterns, yet they concurrently undermined student agency within play, and the relevance of these activities to external contexts. Moreover, Victorian educators assumed that lessons learned on the court would readily carry over to other areas of students’ lives and failed to meaningfully incorporate team sports into the broader educational curriculum. These lessons concerning the educational function of games are particularly timely in light of the growing pervasiveness of games, physical and virtual, in educational contexts and in children’s lives in general.     

杀父者：现代派儿子的自传——读爱德蒙·高斯的《父与子》

高斯的自传《父与子》是英国传记文学史上第一部现代派传记。高斯在这部自传中一反隐晦和溢美的维多利亚时代传记文风,围绕父子之争,建构了一个偏执、狭隘的父亲形象,颠覆了维多利亚时代父权至上的伦理观。《父与子》在传记艺术层面融入现代小说的写作手法,改变了传统传记的书写规范。作为英国＂新传记＂的前奏,《父与子》开启了现代派文学＂杀父＂的反传统之风。文章拟从伦理学、文学和心理学三个方面揭示《父与子》的杀父的主题。     

论《呼啸山庄》的最初滑铁卢

作为英国文学中的经典名著,《呼啸山庄》长期以来受到读者和评论家的青睐和追捧。可令人惊异的是,刚出版时它却遭到了评论界的漠视和指责。本文结合维多利亚时期英国小说批评的主要准则,分析《呼》与这些准则的不符之处,揭示出其最初滑铁卢的深层原因。     

权威与声音

在维多利亚时代的文学传统中,话语的权威附属于主导意识形态中受过教育的白种男性,女性小说家的地位在何种程度上贴近这一主导权威构成了女性作家是否能建立自己叙述权威的可能.在主流的作者型叙述声音支配下,不同女性小说家在文本构建中会采用不同的声音模式,同一作家在创作的不同时期也存在着叙述声音混杂的现象.     

The Voices at the Turning of the Times——A Comparative Study on Victorian Poems

Victorian age is the age full of fundamental changes in the society.At this turning of times,many poets spoke out their anxiety about this world,like Alfred Tennyson and Matthew Arnold,their poems express their anxiety and helpness about the new world and their sadness and loneliness about the loss of the old world.Certaintly there are also some poets like Thomas Hardy who were more ready to face the new world soberly and accepted the reality directly.Probably they alredy realized the coming of the new world could not be stopped anyway.These are the voices at the turning of the times.The aim of this essay is to find out such voices by doing a comparative study on the three poets and their poems     

On the Failure of Jude’s Ambition

In Jude the Obscure, Victorian education and Victorian morality are the main causes of Jude fawley’s tragedy in ambi?tion. This article will discuss Jude’s tragedy from both external and internal aspec...     

维多利亚绅士的典范--对盖斯凯尔夫人《妻子与女儿》中吉布森先生形象的分析

In Mrs. Gaskell's Wives and Daughters , she successfully depicted the male character, Mr. Gibson, leaving the world a model man who is sensible, loving, honest,responsible, observant, intelligent, generous, kind-hearted and full of self -esteem, a model Victorian gentleman.