Pregnancy and the Novel: Representation and Concealment from Richardson to Hardy

怀孕与小说：从理查森到哈代的再现与隐藏

• 批准号: AH/W011204/1
• 负责人: Tracy Brain
• 金额: $ 18.66万
• 依托单位: Bath Spa University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FW011204%2F1
• 关键词: Pregnancy; Novel; Representation; Concealment; Richardson

This project will be driven by my insights as a novelist who writes literary adaptations of eighteenth- and nineteenth century texts partly to explore the challenges of representing pregnancy in fiction. It will also be informed by my expertise as a literary critic who has long been fascinated by how those before me have responded to pregnancy, especially in the context of violence and other forms of external control. The project's major output will be an academic monograph, Pregnancy and the Novel: Representation and Concealment from Richardson to Hardy. This will draw on medical texts to illuminate the ways that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novelists simultaneously hide and reveal problematic pregnancies and births. It will reveal a reciprocal influence between literature and science.My study of the techniques of Richardson, the Brontes, Eliot, Dickens and Hardy informs my own fiction, especially the ways they embed reproductive events, utilise first- and second-person point of view, and depict sensitive or taboo subject matter. The research will also consider the strategies by which the novelists who follow Richardson and precede the Brontes depict pregnancy. Smollett, Sterne, Burney, Lewis, Inchbald, Dacre, Austen and Scott frequently utilise an explicitness or euphemism in order to reflect a character's immodesty or morality. They develop Richardson's strategies for linking pregnancy time to story time, and utilise his techniques of misdirection so that pregnancy masquerades as other illnesses; in light of this, I have made similar experiments in my own novels.By reconstructing historical knowledge of reproductive medicine and utilising my novelist's habit of reverse engineering the writer's planting of clues, this project will uncover what can easily be missed by twenty-first century readers. The project will change and deepen our understanding of multiple scenes in all of these novels. A few examples will illustrate this. Numerous critics dismiss the possibility of pregnancy in Clarissa (1747-48) or at best attribute the heroine's symptoms to a nervous disorder (e.g. Wilt, Meek, and Lovett). Yet her fainting, weeping and delirium are straight out of contemporary midwifery textbooks. Anne Bronte uses the diary form and references to the seasons to track her heroine's pregnancy in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). In a clever feint, she describes pregnancy symptoms (a rush of blood, feeling 'ill' and 'unwell', being 'white in the face') that readers are primed to interpret as responses to distress and provocation (Ch. XXVII). Fanny's 'birth giving and death' in Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) have been seen as 'significant narrative ellipses' by a critic (Bronfen, 1993, 70) who overlooked the milestones and posts that Fanny counts and leans against at 'intervals' (Ch. XL) as she struggles to reach the poorhouse, which are surely Hardy's way of writing his heroine's labour into the text.This project is original because it will recalibrate Richardson's legacy in light of a new understanding of his strategies for embedding pregnancy. It will break new ground by revealing how, after Richardson, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novelists depict pregnancies and labours that are seemingly absent from their texts but are in fact present. The project will utilise creative methods to involve non-academics in the research and create impact, especially when it comes to ideas of pregnancy and control of our own bodies, and how the language around this might change. Public engagement materials will help pregnant women and birthing people to tell stories and reflect upon experiences, and be of use to advocacy organisations as well as literary societies. I will collaborate with medical practitioners, enhancing their well-being by leading a creative writing workshop for those who are interested in developing their own medical memoirs; and a specialist reading group on concealed pregnancy.

这个项目将由我作为一名小说家的洞察力驱动，我对十八世纪和十九世纪的文本进行文学改编，部分原因是为了探索在小说中表现怀孕的挑战。我作为一名文学评论家的专业知识也将告诉我，我长期以来一直着迷于我之前的人如何应对怀孕，特别是在暴力和其他形式的外部控制的背景下。该项目的主要成果将是一本学术专着《怀孕与小说：从理查森到哈代的表征与隐藏》。这将利用医学文本来阐明十八世纪和十九世纪小说家同时隐藏和揭示有问题的怀孕和分娩的方式。它将揭示文学与科学之间的相互影响。我对理查森、勃朗特兄弟、艾略特、狄更斯和哈代的技巧的研究为我自己的小说提供了信息，特别是他们嵌入生殖事件的方式，利用第一人称和第二人称的观点，并描绘敏感或禁忌的主题。该研究还将考虑理查森之后和勃朗特姐妹之前的小说家描绘怀孕的策略。斯莫利特、斯特恩、伯尼、刘易斯、因奇博尔德、戴克、奥斯汀和斯科特经常使用直白或委婉的说法来反映人物的不谦虚或道德。他们发展了理查森将怀孕时间与故事时间联系起来的策略，并利用他的误导技术，使怀孕伪装成其他疾病；有鉴于此，我在自己的小说中也做了类似的实验。通过重构生殖医学的历史知识，并利用我的小说家逆向工程作者植入线索的习惯，这个项目将揭示二十一世纪容易错过的东西。读者。该项目将改变并加深我们对所有这些小说中多个场景的理解。几个例子将说明这一点。许多评论家否认克拉丽莎（1747-48）怀孕的可能性，或者最多将女主人公的症状归因于神经紊乱（例如威尔特、米克和洛维特）。然而她的昏厥、哭泣和精神错乱却是当代助产教科书上的情节。安妮·勃朗特在《怀尔德菲尔庄园的房客》（1848 年）中使用日记的形式和对季节的引用来追踪女主人公的怀孕情况。她巧妙地佯装描述了怀孕症状（血流汹涌、感觉“不舒服”和“不舒服”、“脸色发白”），读者很容易将其解读为对痛苦和挑衅的反应（第二十七章）。批评家（Bronfen，1993，70）将《远离尘嚣》（1874）中范妮的“分娩和死亡”视为“重要的叙事省略”，他们忽视了范妮以“间隔”计算和依赖的里程碑和帖子’（第XL章）当她努力到达济贫院时，这无疑是哈代把他的女主人公的劳动写进小说的方式。这个项目是原创的，因为它将根据对理查森植入怀孕策略的新理解来重新调整理查森的遗产。本书将开辟新天地，揭示继理查森之后，十八世纪和十九世纪的小说家如何描绘他们的文本中看似不存在但实际上存在的怀孕和分娩。该项目将利用创造性的方法让非学术界人士参与研究并产生影响，特别是在涉及怀孕和控制我们自己的身体的想法以及围绕此的语言可能如何变化时。公众参与材料将帮助孕妇和分娩者讲述故事和反思经历，并可供倡导组织和文学协会使用。我将与医生合作，通过为那些有兴趣编写自己的医学回忆录的人举办创意写作研讨会来提高他们的福祉；以及一个关于隐匿怀孕的专家阅读小组。