Samuel Richardson, Dress, and Discourse

by K. Oliver

Overview

This book concerns itself with dress in the novels of Samuel Richardson, and how attire confirms, contributes to, or challenges the characters' fashioning of self and the self as others (characters or readers) perceive it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349365319
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	01/01/2008
Edition description:	1st ed. 2008
Pages:	229
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x (d)

About the Author

KATHLEEN M. OLIVER is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Central Florida, USA, where she specializes in British Literature of the long eighteenth century. Previous and forthcoming publications include essays on Daniel Defoe, Sarah Fielding, Samuel Richardson and Frances Sheridan.

Table of Contents

Introduction PART I: THE BODY AND DRESS OF THOUGHT Dress and the Discourses of the Mind Dress in Eighteenth-Century Life and Literature PART II: DRESSING FOR SUCCESS WITH PAMELA Ladies, Gentlemen, and Servants: Virtue and the Domestic Ideal 'So Neat, So Clean, So Pretty!':  Dressing Up Virtue Quaker, Rustic, and Fool: Masquerading with Mrs. B. PART III: WINDOWSHOPPING THE ESSENTIAL SELF WITH CLARISSA Virtuous Stays and Sexual Hoops: The Social Self 'Of Her Own Invention': Revealing the Self 'Where . . . Art is Disguised': Concealing the Self PART IV: REFASHIONING THE WORLD WITH SIR CHARLES GRANDISON 'A Conformist to Fashion': Dressing for Duty 'A Mighty Glitter': Seeing through the Veil 'Dressing in Colours': Changing the Guard Conclusion Notes Works Cited Index