Vulnerability and Resilience in English Literature of the Long 19th Century: Critical Essays

The nineteenth-century was a time of accelerated change and stark contradictions. It was marked by stability, advancement and reform, but also by widening inequalities, spiritual crisis and social unrest. Identity and gender came under pressure, religious belief was called into question, and the condition of women and children seemed to belie the much-vaunted idea of progress.

Essays in this book explore how these contradictions and concerns are reflected in nineteenth-century literature. In discussing historical figures, characters and plots that are variously vulnerable and/or resilient, the essays reflect the breadth of nineteenth-century literature, from realist and sensational fiction to autobiography and poetry. Besides providing insights into the transfigurative role writing played, both as a means to express vulnerability and as a resilience process, the essays also foster further reflection on two timeless dimensions of the human condition.

Raffaella Antinucci is a professor of English literature at Parthenope University of Naples (Italy). Her research focuses on Victorian literature and on the Anglo-Italian cultural relations in the nineteenth century. Adrian Grafe is a professor of English at Artois University in France. He was an associate professor at the Sorbonne for 10 years and has published broadly on poetry. He was named a Fellow of the English Association (GB) in 2011 in recognition of his research on poetry.