Outlines and apologias: literary authority, intertextual trauma, and the structure of Victorian and Edwardian sage autobiography
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| Title: | Outlines and apologias: literary authority, intertextual trauma, and the structure of Victorian and Edwardian sage autobiography |
|---|---|
| Authors: | Heady, Chene R. |
| Advisors: | Riede, David |
| Summary: | The Victorian and Edwardian sages were authors who worked, following the decline of organized religion among the educated classes in Britain, to restore a sense of unitary meaning to the world. As George Landow observes, the sage’s system is, by its very nature as a philosophy that attempts to explain the entire world, unprovable, and the sage’s authority is thus derived from his ability to interpret the world vividly, plausibly, and as a whole. Since the sage’s authority cannot be established by conventional means, it ultimately derives, as Susan Morgan notes, from the sage’s “lived experience.” This dissertation analyzes the implications of sage rhetoric for the genre of autobiography. The sage autobiographer must show that every aspect of his life serves as proof of his theories and, being a public figure, he invariably has experienced incidents—primarily lost literary controversies and poor textual reception—that seem to refute his theories. The premise of this dissertation is that these literary disasters constitute “intertextual traumas” that disrupt the sage’s literary authority and textual identity, that serve as signs that the sage seemingly cannot interpret. Sage autobiographies, I argue, are elaborately intertextual attempts to narrate, and thus to interpret and to control, such incidents of intertextual trauma. Unlike most autobiographers, the sage references and interprets preexisting biographies of himself and other rival accounts of his life because to do otherwise would be to permanently cede his authority to interpret the world. |
| URL: | http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1083779224 |
| Database: | OpenDissertations |
| FullText | Text: Availability: 0 |
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| Header | DbId: ddu DbLabel: OpenDissertations An: ddu.oai.etd.ohiolink.edu.osu1083779224 AccessLevel: 6 PubType: Dissertation/ Thesis PubTypeId: dissertation PreciseRelevancyScore: 0 |
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| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: Outlines and apologias: literary authority, intertextual trauma, and the structure of Victorian and Edwardian sage autobiography – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Heady%2C+Chene+R%2E%22">Heady, Chene R.</searchLink> – Name: Author Label: Advisors Group: Au Data: Riede, David – Name: Abstract Label: Summary Group: Ab Data: The Victorian and Edwardian sages were authors who worked, following the decline of organized religion among the educated classes in Britain, to restore a sense of unitary meaning to the world. As George Landow observes, the sage’s system is, by its very nature as a philosophy that attempts to explain the entire world, unprovable, and the sage’s authority is thus derived from his ability to interpret the world vividly, plausibly, and as a whole. Since the sage’s authority cannot be established by conventional means, it ultimately derives, as Susan Morgan notes, from the sage’s “lived experience.” This dissertation analyzes the implications of sage rhetoric for the genre of autobiography. The sage autobiographer must show that every aspect of his life serves as proof of his theories and, being a public figure, he invariably has experienced incidents—primarily lost literary controversies and poor textual reception—that seem to refute his theories. The premise of this dissertation is that these literary disasters constitute “intertextual traumas” that disrupt the sage’s literary authority and textual identity, that serve as signs that the sage seemingly cannot interpret. Sage autobiographies, I argue, are elaborately intertextual attempts to narrate, and thus to interpret and to control, such incidents of intertextual trauma. Unlike most autobiographers, the sage references and interprets preexisting biographies of himself and other rival accounts of his life because to do otherwise would be to permanently cede his authority to interpret the world. – Name: URL Label: URL Group: URL Data: <link linkTarget="URL" linkTerm="http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1083779224" linkWindow="_blank">http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1083779224</link> |
| PLink | https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=ddu&AN=ddu.oai.etd.ohiolink.edu.osu1083779224 |
| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Languages: – Code: eng Text: English Subjects: – SubjectFull: Literature, English Type: general – SubjectFull: sage discourse Type: general – SubjectFull: Victorian autobiography Type: general – SubjectFull: Edwardian autobiography Type: general – SubjectFull: trauma theory Type: general – SubjectFull: intertextuality Type: general – SubjectFull: literary authority Type: general – SubjectFull: Thomas Carlyle Type: general – SubjectFull: John Henry Newman Type: general – SubjectFull: H. G. Wells Type: general – SubjectFull: G. K. Chesterton Type: general – SubjectFull: Mahatma Gandhi Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: Outlines and apologias: literary authority, intertextual trauma, and the structure of Victorian and Edwardian sage autobiography Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Heady, Chene R. IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 19 M: 05 Type: published Y: 2004 |
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