Richard Hughes Gibson, Forgiveness in Victorian Literature: Grammar, Narrative, and Community.

Abstract

To many 19th-century scholars, Richard Hughes Gibson's topic will undoubtedly seem a rather broad one. Yet, despite the scope of the study, and the fact that it deals with canonical authors from the era, Gibson's text does not at all feel obsolete. This is primarily due to the fact that literary scholarship as a whole, and 19th-century scholarship in particular, is still in the process of rediscovering the importance of religious belief and practice to Victorian-era literature. As such, any recent criticism which focuses on a subject like the use of forgiveness in Victorian Literature seems to be entirely absent. For the most part, Gibson's analysis focuses solely on his primary texts.In the first chapter (which also serves as an introduction), Richard Hughes Gibson lays out his analytical methodology-the venues by which he will approach the uses of forgiveness in the era's literature. The venues are 'grammar', which deals with the necessity of a shared linguistic understanding of forgiveness between characters; 'narrative', which suggests that forgiveness must happen in individual 'scenes' as well as over time, and 'community', which looks at how a private wrong may engender public scorn. Finally, in addition to these venues, Gibson acknowledges the important contextual role religious belief plays in the understanding of the concept as a whole. Gibson is certainly aware of the traditional ''secularization narrative'' when dealing with a religiously charged topic like forgiveness, and gives careful attention to the fact that each of these authors represent various shades of the sectarian fragmentation that was taking place in the religious landscape of England at the time. If an understanding of forgiveness is couched in religious language and belief, then a Unitarian (Dickens) would approach the concept of forgiveness differently from a High Church Anglican (Trollope), someone with an Evangelical background (Eliot), an agnostic (Hardy), or questioning Catholic (Wilde). The structure of the chapters (from early Victorian to mid-century and then fin de sie`cle authors) is of course also important, as it imitates the passage of time and thus the movement toward the religious fragmentation and modern ''secularization'' that the traditional narrative regarding the period embodied.In Gibson's second chapter, which deals with Dickens, he notes that in The Life of Our Lord, ''Dickens's Jesus rarely teaches on a topic other than forgiveness or the related dispositions of compassion and mercy'' (45). In his analysis of Dickens's