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Charity and Condescension: Victorian Literature and the Dilemmas of Philanthropy
Charity and Condescension explores how condescension, a traditional English virtue, went sour in the nineteenth century, and considers how the failure of condescension influenced Victorian efforts to reform philanthropy and to construct new narrative models of social conciliation. In the literary work of authors like Dickens, Eliot, and Tennyson, and in the writing of reformers like Octavia Hill and Samuel Barnett, condescension—once a sign of the power and value of charity—became an emblem of charity’s limitations.

This book argues that, despite Victorian charity’s reputation for idealistic self-assurance, it frequently doubted its own operations and was driven by creative self-critique. Through sophisticated and original close readings of important Victorian texts, Daniel Siegel shows how these important ideas developed even as England struggled to deal with its growing underclass and an expanding notion of the state’s responsibility to its poor.

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Charity and Condescension: Victorian Literature and the Dilemmas of Philanthropy
Charity and Condescension explores how condescension, a traditional English virtue, went sour in the nineteenth century, and considers how the failure of condescension influenced Victorian efforts to reform philanthropy and to construct new narrative models of social conciliation. In the literary work of authors like Dickens, Eliot, and Tennyson, and in the writing of reformers like Octavia Hill and Samuel Barnett, condescension—once a sign of the power and value of charity—became an emblem of charity’s limitations.

This book argues that, despite Victorian charity’s reputation for idealistic self-assurance, it frequently doubted its own operations and was driven by creative self-critique. Through sophisticated and original close readings of important Victorian texts, Daniel Siegel shows how these important ideas developed even as England struggled to deal with its growing underclass and an expanding notion of the state’s responsibility to its poor.

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Charity and Condescension: Victorian Literature and the Dilemmas of Philanthropy

Charity and Condescension: Victorian Literature and the Dilemmas of Philanthropy

by Daniel Siegel
Charity and Condescension: Victorian Literature and the Dilemmas of Philanthropy

Charity and Condescension: Victorian Literature and the Dilemmas of Philanthropy

by Daniel Siegel

Overview

Charity and Condescension explores how condescension, a traditional English virtue, went sour in the nineteenth century, and considers how the failure of condescension influenced Victorian efforts to reform philanthropy and to construct new narrative models of social conciliation. In the literary work of authors like Dickens, Eliot, and Tennyson, and in the writing of reformers like Octavia Hill and Samuel Barnett, condescension—once a sign of the power and value of charity—became an emblem of charity’s limitations.

This book argues that, despite Victorian charity’s reputation for idealistic self-assurance, it frequently doubted its own operations and was driven by creative self-critique. Through sophisticated and original close readings of important Victorian texts, Daniel Siegel shows how these important ideas developed even as England struggled to deal with its growing underclass and an expanding notion of the state’s responsibility to its poor.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780821425190
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Publication date: 02/14/2023
Series: Series in Victorian Studies
Pages: 232
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Daniel Siegel is an associate professor of English at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the author of several articles about Victorian literature and culture.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Charity and Condescension 1

Chapter 1 Help Wanting: The Exhaustion of a Dickensian Ideal 37

Chapter 2 Preacher's Vigil, Landlord's Watch: Charity by the Clock in Adam Bede 75

Chapter 3 Why Settle?: Samuel Barnett, Octavia Hill, the London Slums 101

Chapter 4 Tennyson's Salvation Army 129

Epilogue 163

Notes 169

Bibliography 195

Index 205

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