A good portion of my research explores subversion because it is frequently misunderstood by critics to mean the opposite of the intended meaning; in fact, when subversion is done correctly, even after centuries of study critics should still remain uncertain regarding the intended meaning. For example, Sir Walter Scott called his series about the Jacobite rebellions Waverley, suggesting wavering between the Whigs and the Tories or between the Jacobite camp and those loyal to the chosen monarch. Evidence from Scott’s biography and personal writings hint that he favored the Jacobite cause, but if he refrained from certainty on this issue as there was a chance of regime change, and even an option that appeared politically-correct at one point might have become seditious for the next administration. The tensions between an author’s true believes and what they could legally say is at the heart of the need for subversion in periods of suppressed freedoms of the press such as the Victorian period covered in this particular study. Kenneth Womack and James M. Decker set out to tackle this complex concept through a “close textual analyses regarding the role of subversive acts or tendencies in Victorian literature. By drawing clear cultural contexts for the works under review—including such canonical texts as Dracula, Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, and stories featuring Sherlock Holmes—the critics in this anthology offer groundbreaking studies of subversion as a literary motif./ For some late nineteenth-century British novelists, subversion was a central aspect of their writerly existence. Although—or perhaps because—most Victorian authors composed their works for a general and mixed audience, many writers employed strategies designed to subvert genteel expectations. In addition to using coded and oblique subject matter, such figures also hid their transgressive material ‘in plain sight.’ While some writers sought to critique, and even destabilize, their society, others juxtaposed subversive themes and aesthetics negatively with communal norms in hopes of quashing progressive agendas.”
The book is divided into disciplinary parts on women, ideologies, and genres. The subversive concepts covered include the fight against the “feminine” characterization, pro-adultery sentiments, anti-orientalism, pro-fasting beliefs, hidden comedy in horror, sinning clergymen, and the criminal sins perpetrated by a detective like Sherlock Holmes. The “Introduction” offers a dense theoretical framework for how subversion has been explained by past critics. Sadly, they digress into discussing Bakhtin, Butler and Barthes’ ideas on this subject (xii). This is sad for me because these critics’ ideas on subversion is that subversive techniques should be utilized to disguise nonsense, inconsistencies, lack of logic, inaccuracies and various other errors in their own writing. They utilize big words and placing words in an unfamiliar and confusing order to disorient readers and to make them feel the theory is too deep instead of nonsensical for the confused readers; thus, these critics retain top positions in academia while they write nonsense criticism that is applauded by those who want to avoid reading it as the most brilliant ponderings of the century. If Womack and Decker cite these guys in the introductory comments, either they are about to engage in nonsense criticism themselves, or they have not read these guys and they are just recycling all critics who have mentioned subversion… Then again, they are only editing these essays, so each of the included writers might have unique ideas on the theory and proper applications of the concept of “subversion”.
Troy J. Bassett’s chapter is curious because it asks a question that coincides with my own current research: he attempts to prove that Helen Dickens was “a sister-in-law of the famous novelist”, despite a lack of evidence to firmly establish this. My computational linguistic method could test this theory by analyzing letters from Dickens’ relative, Charles Dickens, and other potential authors. Based on what I have learned about pseudonyms, it is more likely that another author adopted the last name Dickens to capitalize on Dickens’ fame that a relative of Dickens was publishing, but did not take credit for this affiliation. But running linguistic tests has proven to break most of my presuppositions. It is easy to get lost in associations and seeming hints without an objective grounding like a linguistic analysis. Bassett offers biographic summaries that compare what is known about Helen Dickens (the novelist) and Helen Dobson Dickens (the sister-in-law); I have found this type of biographic comparison to be very helpful, but it is easy to slip into confirmation bias without some other secondary proof to see the vast array of biographic detail as proof of an attribution. For all we know prior to linguistic analysis, Helen Dickens could have been the ghostwriter behind all of Charles Dickens’ novels and these novels under her own name were a way for her to reveal her identity subversively. Either way, this is a much needed comparative study because the topic of attribution, ghostwriting and plagiarism is essential for the world to solve its current anti-intellectualism problem.
All of the other chapters appear to be just as engaging and neatly edited. Many of them lean on biographic evidence as sorting subversive techniques out tends to necessitate understanding personal motivations and political affiliations of the author. For example, Nancy Henry concludes: that Eliot’s “recorded comments about divorce indicate a theoretical approval, she and Lewes did not pursue this option for reasons that might never be known, but that that certainly are more complicated than biographies have led us to believe” (59). One of the less coherent chapters is from one of the editors, Kenneth Womack, who keeps returning to Jauss’ levels of interaction” to explain “Marlow’s experiences with Mr. Kurtz”. Womack concludes: “Conrad critiques Empire’s blunt inhumanity—in short, the big lie that allows expansionism to continue unabated and without ethical reflection” (122). Perhaps the choice of topic here is strange as Conrad’s anti-colonialism is hardly subversive: it is pretty blatant in the harsh language the characters and the narrator offer regarding the problems faced by the Europeans and the natives as they travel up to Congo. Some of the other chapters are a bit over-reliant on quotes, as with Ira B. Nadel’s chapter on Dracula. Though she does connect all this evidence in a clear and logical manner: “Readers can confront and escape the admittedly grotesque stakings and deaths through the comic, an element integral rather than extraneous to the novel” (149).
Overall, the good outweighs the bad in this collection: this is difficult to do with any collection of scholarship, as each writer can have unique writerly problems that prevent a reader from penetrating through all of the included content. Given the number of misunderstandings in literary scholarship due to subversions, many more books can be written on this subject and they would all still be delivering new and curious revelations.