By John Plotz
What fueled the Victorian ardour for hair-jewelry and memorial earrings? while may a regular item metamorphose from commodity to necessary relic? In transportable estate, John Plotz examines the hot position performed by means of transportable gadgets in persuading Victorian Britons that they can go back and forth out of the country with non secular sentiments, family members ties, and nationwide identification intact. In an empire outlined as a lot via the movement of capital as through strength of fingers, the problem of holding Englishness whereas dwelling out of the country grew to become a vital Victorian preoccupation, making a urgent want for items which may with ease go back and forth overseas as personifications of Britishness. while a appreciably new courting among money price and nostalgic institutions arose in definite resonant mementoes--in teacups, jewelry, sprigs of heather, and handkerchiefs, yet such a lot of all in books. moveable estate examines how culture-bearing items got here to face for far away humans and areas, growing or maintaining a feeling of self and group regardless of geographic dislocation. Victorian novels--because they themselves got here to be understood because the vital moveable property--tell the tale of this modification so much basically. Plotz analyzes a variety of works, paying specific awareness to George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, Anthony Trollope's Eustace Diamonds, and R. D. Blackmore's Lorna Doone. He additionally discusses Thomas Hardy and William Morris's vehement assault at the very suggestion of cultural portability. the result's a richer realizing of the function of gadgets in British tradition at domestic and out of the country through the Age of Empire.
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Additional info for Portable Property: Victorian Culture on the Move
Sample text
Mary’s letter simultaneously circulates as a piece of depersonalized freight in a worldwide postal system, and as a singular plea to the one who will feel the sentiment intended. ” The letter helps us discern the existence of a wide range of such doubly marked objects in Cranford: from the pearl necklace that the returning Peter liquefies into presents for Cranford ladies, to the nice, dry, greasefree tea that Miss Mattie deals in her double role as lady and merchant, to the worthless five-pound note that Miss Mattie redeems from a poor farmer (the note comes from “her” bank, so that she takes the failure personally).
69 It is reportable worldwide—there are two memorable Englishmen always desperate for radio or newspaper cricket scores in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Van- 20 • Introduction ishes (1938)—yet always inescapably English. ” James Buzard’s recent account of imperial autoethnography—that is, the scrupulous examination of one’s own culture, performed by English writers at the height of British dominance—argues that dominant cultures are not just cataloguers of vanquished cultures, but also of their own ascendant national essence.
45 Although all the signs point toward a sacrosanct relic—close-written words and a seal are mentioned—it is crucial that Margaret has already opened the letter, and changed the money that was enclosed into Scotch notes, after which she has reinserted those new notes into the letter. This metamorphosis might simply read as a mere extension of the logic of finance, whereby cash that can buy one trip is used—as part of a fiscally minded gift exchange—to buy another instead (same ticket to London, different body traveling with it).