The language of painting in nineteenth-century English fiction

dc.contributor.advisorKnox-Shaw, Peteren_ZA
dc.contributor.authorVan Pletzen, Ermina Dorotheaen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2016-09-14T12:58:55Z
dc.date.available2016-09-14T12:58:55Z
dc.date.issued1995en_ZA
dc.descriptionBibliography: pages 322-332.en_ZA
dc.description.abstractThis thesis examines the material and aesthetic sustenance which the novel as developing genre drew from the burgeoning popular interest in the visual arts, particularly the pictorial arts, which took place during the course of the nineteenth century in Britain. The first chapter develops the concept of the language of painting which for the purposes of the thesis refers to the linguistic transactions occurring between word and pictorial image when writers on art formulate their impressions in language. This type of discourse is described as governed by conceptual repetition and firmly established techniques of ekphrasis, as well as by indirect and peripheral modes of reference, not to the concrete stylistic features of the works of art under consideration, but to their effect on the viewer, the metaphors they call to mind, and the processes which can be inferred about their conception. The first chapter also gives a survey of the most important thematic strains and structural developments which had been imported into literature by the end of the eighteenth century. A chapter is then dedicated to each of five nineteenth-century novelists, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Henry James, mapping out their individual grasp and knowledge of pictorial art in their particular circumstances, their experience of the art world, and the extent to which their experience of art is mediated by current painterly discourses. Each chapter next considers how pictorial material is appropriated in these novelists' fiction and whether the fiction draws structural support and meaning from pictorial concepts. The thesis furthermore investigates the inverse question of how the fiction itself becomes a context which not only reflects, but also shapes and alters inherited languages of painting. The second chapter approaches Austen's social satire against the background of the aesthetic traditions which she inherits from the eighteenth century. It is argued that her own novelistic aesthetic gains more from the discourses surrounding the practice of picturesque landscape appreciation (and related forms) than from Reynolds's doctrine of the general and ideal dominating the mid to late eighteenth century.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationVan Pletzen, E. D. (1995). <i>The language of painting in nineteenth-century English fiction</i>. (Thesis). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of English Language and Literature. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/21770en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationVan Pletzen, Ermina Dorothea. <i>"The language of painting in nineteenth-century English fiction."</i> Thesis., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of English Language and Literature, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/21770en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationVan Pletzen, E. 1995. The language of painting in nineteenth-century English fiction. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Van Pletzen, Ermina Dorothea AB - This thesis examines the material and aesthetic sustenance which the novel as developing genre drew from the burgeoning popular interest in the visual arts, particularly the pictorial arts, which took place during the course of the nineteenth century in Britain. The first chapter develops the concept of the language of painting which for the purposes of the thesis refers to the linguistic transactions occurring between word and pictorial image when writers on art formulate their impressions in language. This type of discourse is described as governed by conceptual repetition and firmly established techniques of ekphrasis, as well as by indirect and peripheral modes of reference, not to the concrete stylistic features of the works of art under consideration, but to their effect on the viewer, the metaphors they call to mind, and the processes which can be inferred about their conception. The first chapter also gives a survey of the most important thematic strains and structural developments which had been imported into literature by the end of the eighteenth century. A chapter is then dedicated to each of five nineteenth-century novelists, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Henry James, mapping out their individual grasp and knowledge of pictorial art in their particular circumstances, their experience of the art world, and the extent to which their experience of art is mediated by current painterly discourses. Each chapter next considers how pictorial material is appropriated in these novelists' fiction and whether the fiction draws structural support and meaning from pictorial concepts. The thesis furthermore investigates the inverse question of how the fiction itself becomes a context which not only reflects, but also shapes and alters inherited languages of painting. The second chapter approaches Austen's social satire against the background of the aesthetic traditions which she inherits from the eighteenth century. It is argued that her own novelistic aesthetic gains more from the discourses surrounding the practice of picturesque landscape appreciation (and related forms) than from Reynolds's doctrine of the general and ideal dominating the mid to late eighteenth century. DA - 1995 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 1995 T1 - The language of painting in nineteenth-century English fiction TI - The language of painting in nineteenth-century English fiction UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/21770 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/21770
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationVan Pletzen ED. The language of painting in nineteenth-century English fiction. [Thesis]. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of English Language and Literature, 1995 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/21770en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentDepartment of English Language and Literatureen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Humanitiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherArt and literatureen_ZA
dc.titleThe language of painting in nineteenth-century English fictionen_ZA
dc.typeDoctoral Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoral
dc.type.qualificationnamePhDen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceThesisen_ZA
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