This section contains 9,293 words (approx. 31 pages at 300 words per page) |
![]() |
SOURCE: "The Female Bildungsroman: Tradition and Revision in Oliphant's Fiction," in Margaret Oliphant: Critical Essays on a Gentle Subversive, edited by D. J. Trela, Associated University Presses, 1995, pp. 66-89.
In the following essay, Peterson examines Oliphant's experimentation with the form and content of the Victorian bildungsroman, focusing in particular on the Carlingford novels (1861-76), on Hester (1883), and on Kirsteen (1890).
Modern critical discussions of Victorian bildungsroman distinguish sharply between male and female versions of the form. The male version, so standard distinctions suggest, uses a vocational crisis as its central dilemma, tracing the development of its hero as he seeks to find his place in the world, whether that be through accommodation, rebellion, or withdrawal; the female bildungsroman, in contrast, traces "a voyage in," substituting an intense self-consciousness or the psychological development of its heroine for the more active engagement with society of her male counterpart.1 The male bildungsroman...
This section contains 9,293 words (approx. 31 pages at 300 words per page) |
![]() |