Pure Women in a Blighted World: Mechanisms of Social Protest in Romantic Tragedy, The Cenci, and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (2016)

Undergraduate: Alexander Buckley

Faculty Advisor: Janice Koelb
Department: English & Comparative Literature

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Literary scholars often contend that the tragic drama of the Romantic era is inferior to the tragic drama of previous generations, suffering from a fatal lack of subtlety, believability, and humanity. Such a dismissal, however, belies the overwhelming value of Romantic tragedy as both an influence on later literature and as a vehicle for social protest. This presentation therefore advances one model of Romantic tragedy, positing that Romantic tragedy--unlike previous tragic models--unusually emphasizes the conflict between defiant, virtuous protagonists and constrictive, iniquitous social structures. It then applies this model to two texts: The Cenci, perhaps the exemplary English Romantic tragedy; and Tess of the d'Urbervilles, a politically-charged late-Victorian novel. It explores how these texts use the tragic model to discuss issues of sexual oppression while also considering how the novel form expands tragedy's possibilities.