The Dangerous Potential of Reading: Readers & the Negotiation of Power in Selected Nineteenth-Century Narratives
, by Aliaga-Buchenau,Ana-IsabelNote: Supplemental materials are not guaranteed with Rental or Used book purchases.
- ISBN: 9780415968331 | 041596833X
- Cover: Hardcover
- Copyright: 10/15/2003
The development of a mass readership, a mass market for books, and a prominent status of reading and readers is reflected in the central role of literacy, reading, and books in the lives of protagonists in nineteenth-century American and French literature. In this book, Ana-Isabel Aliaga-Buchenau examines the destabilizing role of reading in the works of Frederick Douglass, Horatio Alger, Emile Zola, Louisa May Alcott, and Gustave Flaubert. This book-the first to study nineteenth-century protagonists across lines of nationality, class, and gender-demonstrates the empowering effects of reading for Douglass, Alger's Ragged Dick, Zola's Etienne, Alcott's Jo, and Flaubert's Emma.