Novel Institutions: Anachronism, Irish Novels and Nineteenth-Century Realism - Paperback

by Mary L. Mullen (Author)

Explores the politics of nineteenth-century British realism

• Offers a new theory of institutions grounded in temporality
• Outlines a transnational theory of British realism that emerges from interpreting Irish realist novels
• Reassesses the politics of realism and the politics of institutions
• Contains close-reading of realist novels as well as a new genealogy of British realism
• Advances a new understanding of the relationship between realism and colonialism

This book examines anachronisms in realist writing from the colonial periphery to redefine British realism and rethink the politics of institutions. Paying unprecedented attention to nineteenth-century Irish novels, it demonstrates how institutions constrain social relationships in the present and limit our sense of political possibilities in the future. It argues that we cannot escape institutions, but we can refuse the narrow political future that they work to secure.

Front Jacket

Explores the politics of nineteenth-century British realism This book examines anachronisms in realist writing from the colonial periphery to redefine British realism and rethink the politics of institutions. Paying unprecedented attention to nineteenth-century Irish novels, it demonstrates how institutions constrain social relationships in the present and limit our sense of political possibilities in the future. It argues that we cannot escape institutions, but we can refuse the narrow political future that they work to secure. Mary L. Mullen is Assistant Professor of English and faculty member of the Center for Irish Studies at Villanova University.

Author Biography

Mary Mullen Assistant Professor of English and faculty member of the Irish Studies Center at Villanova University. She's published articles in Victorian Poetry, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, New Hibernia Review, Cultural Studies, and Victoriographies.