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University of California Press

Caught in the Act

Theatricality in the Nineteenth-Century English Novel

by Joseph Litvak (Author)
Price: $34.95 / £30.00
Publication Date: Sep 2023
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9780520911376
Trim Size: 6.14 x 9.21

About the Book

Litvak demonstrates that private experience in the novels of Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Eliot, and James is a rigorous enactment of a public script that constructs normative gender and class identities. He suggests that the theatricality which pervades these novels enforces social norms while introducing opportunities for novelists to resist them. This approach encourages a rethinking of the genre and its cultural contexts in all their instability and ambivalence.


Litvak demonstrates that private experience in the novels of Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Eliot, and James is a rigorous enactment of a public script that constructs normative gender and class identities. He suggests that the theatricality which pervades the

About the Author

Joseph Litvak is Associate Professor of English at Bowdin College.