Differences in Convention: Serious vs. Comic in Turn-of-the-Century British Literature (1885-1915)

Author

Christopher Michael Mossing

Date of Award

2005

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

English

First Advisor

Natalie Schroeder

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

This thesis attempts to prove that the serious fiction of the late Victorian, the Edwardian, and early modernist eras of British literature differs fundamentally from the comic fiction of the same region and period in the way that it deals with chance. In serious works, authors do not allow acts of chance to dictate the responses of their characters, while the authors of comic works seem to be under no such restriction. To prove that this difference in convention exists, the thesis examines works from a handful of representative authors. For the serious, the thesis examines Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles. The Mayor of Casterbridge. and Jude the Obscure. W. Somerset Maugham’s Liza of Lambeth and Of Human Bondage, and D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers and The Rainbow. For the comic, the thesis examines Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat and Tommy and Co. and P. G. Wodehouse’s The White Feather, Psmith in the City, and My Man. Jeeves.

Recommended Citation

Mossing, Christopher Michael, "Differences in Convention: Serious vs. Comic in Turn-of-the-Century British Literature (1885-1915)" (2005). Honors Theses. 2241.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2241

Accessibility Status

Searchable text