Browsing by Subject "Virtue in literature."
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Item From nature to virtue : moral formation and community in novels by Charlotte Yonge and Elizabeth Gaskell.(2009-08-26T10:45:46Z) Barker, Alisha M.; Vitanza, Dianna M.; English.; Baylor University. Dept. of English.This thesis explores how novels by Charlotte Yonge and Elizabeth Gaskell contest popular Victorian assumptions that moral influence stems from maternal nature. By offering virtue as the true source of moral influence, these authors also challenge Victorian ideas about who should be involved in the moral formation of the young. In this thesis, I first examine how these authors' portrayals of bad mothers demonstrate their belief that maternal instinct is distinct from a woman's ability to be a positive moral influence on her children. Next, I consider how Yonge's and Gaskell's frequent use of virtuous female mentors demonstrates their belief that moral formation is both a communal activity and social duty. Finally, I explore how understanding the virtue that enables moral influence as domestic rather than feminine leads Yonge and Gaskell to portray fathers and male mentors who play a significant role in the moral formation of young people.Item Virtue embodied : fathers and daughters in the eighteenth-century novel.(2010-06-23T12:19:54Z) Getz, Bethany Lee.; Gardner, Kevin J.; English.; Baylor University. Dept. of English.In this study of five eighteenth-century British novels, I explore the connection between an author's definition of virtue and the portrayal of the father-daughter relationship. Both the father-daughter relationship and virtue are pervasive themes in eighteenth-century literature. During the course of the century, patriarchal authority waned, and father-daughter relationships accordingly underwent a change. Accounts of virtue also changed during the century. However, virtue was consistently tied to human happiness though the precise nature of that connection was debated and pondered. Time and again, novelists attempt to answer the question of virtue's connection with happiness within the context of a woman negotiating a perilous journey to marriage. Somewhat surprisingly, the father-daughter relationship is often presented as more important than the anticipated marriage relationship in these novels. As a result, the father-daughter relationship is the author's primary means of offering a definition of virtue and its connection to happiness through fictional embodiments of virtue. Eliza Haywood’'s Love in Excess, Samuel Richardson's Pamela, Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, Elizabeth Inchbald's A Simple Story, and Jane Austen's Emma each depict father-daughter characters that embody virtue to show readers how happiness might be achieved. These authors participate in, respond to, and criticize a tradition of literature which used exemplary characters as pedagogic tools. Depending on how the author defines virtue and its connection to happiness, the five novelists interact with the exemplary tradition in different ways, some of which result in more appealing and compelling portrayals of the father-daughter relationship.