-------- Original Message --------
Subject: VICTORIA Digest - 7 Feb 2004 to 8 Feb 2004 (#2004-40)
From: Automatic digest processor <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, February 9, 2004 5:00 am
To: Recipients of VICTORIA digests <[log in to unmask]>
There are 4 messages totalling 158 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Disinterestedness.
2. Disinterested in pretty trifles
3. gender and novel-reading
4. Manuals of letter writing
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Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 19:25:53 +1000
From: bradley nitins <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Disinterestedness.
Dear All,
I'd like to extend my thanks to those more recent responses to the issue
of disinterestedness in the Victorian period; Jeanne Peterson, Linda
Hunt-Beckman, Ellen Jordan, Beth Sutton-Ramspeck, Al Drake, Chris R.
Vanden Bossche, James Eli Adams, and Alisa Hartz. In the spirit of
intellectual enthusiasm I would like to comment on a few of the issues
raised.
Like Linda i suspect that the appearance of the ideal of
disinterestedness is related to the _self-interested behavior that the
new economy called for_. In fact Albert O. Hirschman's work is telling
here for he locates the rise of a discourse upon "interest" in the
seventeen and eighteenth centuries first to a political, then to an
economic context.For Hirschman the 'interests' advanced an ideal of
business, and the self-interested business man, as an enlightened force
for the public good. This gives us good reason to consider
"disinterestedness" as connected, even if only negatively, to the
history of economic thought, and to an economic cosmology. However, i
also see the emergence of 'disinterestedness' as arising from ethical
and religious sources. It certainly can be detected in the ethical
theory of Lord Shaftesbury. But i think it also can be found more
broadly in the values of middle-class Evangelism. The work of Samuel
Smiles here is illuminating. Witness, for example, how 'interest' and
'disinterestedness' merge in _Self-Help_ where we find Smiles defending
the character of the business man and his narrow 'interests' as well as
arguing that such men must remain temperate and practice self-denial:
_ Economy also means the power of resisting present gratification for
the purpose of securing future good, and in this light it represents the
ascendency of reason over the animal instincts_
Thus economy now is seen in a disinterested, rather than interested,
light However, if disinterestedness is best understood standing from the
viewpoint of a developing middle-class, how do i go about connecting
"disinterestedness" and "professionalism"? For Jeanne Peterson's
argument that the established 'professions', i.e the traditional
professional occupations such as law and medicine, constitute an 'urban
gentry' is quite prevalent (the work of T.W Heyck is another example).
Now most Victorian professionals most probably did see themselves as
being essentially gentlemen, but this does not make them automatically
part of an 'urban gentry', since 'gentlemanly' values in the Victorian
age were not the exclusive possession of the gentry or aristocracy. For
the Victorians, as is well known, the notion of the 'English gentleman'
was no longer based on hereditary but on behavioral criteria. Moreover,
even before the Victorian age and the industrial revolution, according
to scholars like Prest in his 'Introduction: the professions in Early
Modern England" (1987) simply approaching the 'professions' as a purely
aristocratic phenomenon is contentious.
I would also like to thank James Eli Adams; for pointing out the long
association forms of 'disinterestedness' have had with
professionalisation, i only hope i may be able to offer a new
perspective on this old issue. best regards
Bradley Nitins.
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Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 21:46:20 -0000
From: Valerie Gorman <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Disinterested in pretty trifles
Kerryn Goldsworthy writes
"I read this to mean 'not having any sense of her own best interests' or
'not with her own best interests at heart'. Possible translation: 'Not
cunning and calculating like those repellent French'."
And in extension and somewhat in contrast, I read this as "this
disadvantage to . . or against the interest of young ladies of a certain
age. This to go along with giddiness as being thoughtless folly,
flightiness, fickleness, instability. Thus disinterestedness in this
case would be a lesser form of giddiness.
Valerie Gorman
[log in to unmask]
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Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 16:57:45 -0500
From: Meri-Jane Rochelson <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: gender and novel-reading
I've checked the archives, but have not been able to locate an answer to
= this question. So I'm reactivating my VICTORIA subscription (and
saying = hello to all of you I have missed) to ask whether anyone has
statistics = on what percentage of novel readers in the late Victorian
period were = women. One of my graduate students said he had heard a
figure of 87%, = but that sounds very high to me. If anyone has
reliable information--or = can explain that 87% figure--I'd be grateful.
Meri-Jane Rochelson
Department of English
Florida International University
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Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 19:54:55 -0500
From: William Denton <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Manuals of letter writing
On 6 February 2004, Kate Newey wrote:
: A postgraduate here at Lancaster working on John Ruskin's
: letters is seeking references to manuals of letter writing -
: particularly with patterns for letters of condolence - published :
around 1900. She's working through letters sent at Ruskin's
: death, and is interested to know what would have been considered : the
conventional letter of condolence at the time.
I have DICK'S SOCIETY LETTER WRITER FOR LADIES, by William B. Dick (New
York: Dick and Fitzgerald, 1884), which is a bit earlier and on another
continent, but it has nine pages of sample letters of condolence, and
three of replies to letters of condolence.
For example, here's the letter to a friend on the death of a son:
| 1234 Green St., Oct 7th, 18-- | MY
DEAR FRIEND;
|
| I have just heard that you have a dear child with God's angels,
free | from all earthly taint, secure from all the trials and
tribulations of | those who sojourn upon this temporary home. I know
how empty your | loving hands feel without the litle form you have
clasped at your bosom; | how silent all seems now that the voice of your
baby boy is hushed, and | my heart aches for your desolation. But your
joy will come when the | agony of parting is over, and you can think of
yourself as the mother of | an angel, of one of the sinless ones Christ
has bidden to "suffer to | come unto" Him.
|
| May the comfort God alone can give be every yours, dear friend. |
Ever affectionately,
The condolence letters are to a friend: on the death of her father, on
the death of her mother, on the death of a sister, on the death of a
brother, on the death of a son, on the loss (sic) of a daughter, on the
death of a grandfather, on the death of her husband, on the death of his
wife, on the death of a child, on loss of fortune, on loss of limb by
accident, who has lost her sight, on the loss of a lawsuit, who has
suffered loss by fire, who has been robbed, on the loss of a pet dog, on
the loss of a favourite horse, and who has met with disappointment.
There are hundreds of others covering all sorts of situations, including
recommending a chambermaid and warning a sister against a friend. It
makes for fascinating reading.
Bill
--
William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat
lector.
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End of VICTORIA Digest - 7 Feb 2004 to 8 Feb 2004 (#2004-40)
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