Synopses & Reviews
Daniel Born explores the concept of liberal guilt as it first developed in British political and literary culture between the late Romantic period and World War I. Disturbed by the twin spectacle of urban poverty at home and imperialism abroad, major novelistsincluding Charles Dickens, George Eliot, George Gissing, Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, and H. G. Wellsoffered a host of characters who reflect distinct moral responses and sensibilities.
Motivated by the belief that evil is a product of social and economic disparities rather than individual depravity, these characters exhibit guilty consciences in which the guilt is not at all like that envisioned by Victorian Christianity. But at the same time, they are premodern, in that they do not possess our therapeutic culture's notion of guilt as neurosis or pathology.
Liberal guilt declined in the Edwardian period, as exemplified in Wells's postmodern masterpiece, Tono-Bungay. But Born contends that it is a key aspect of 'the liberal imagination' expounded by Lionel Trilling and that it offers correctives to the simplistic individual moral economy of Christianity, the authoritarian modernisms that followed the Edwardian era, and even the strains of liberal nationalism that define the present day.
Review
An intriguing and solid little study. . . . both well-researched and quite tidy; it is a quick and fruitful read.
Modern Language Review
Review
An outstanding analysis of how novels explore the moral issues raised by Britain's urban poverty and imperialist ventures.
John Barbour, Saint Olaf College
Review
Compact, readable, politically and philosophically sophisticated.
English Literature in Translation
About the Author
Daniel Born is assistant professor of English at Marietta College in Ohio.