Castle Richmond, The Famine, and the Critics
Despite the fact that the narrator of Trollope’s Castle Richmond argues that the potato famine of 1845-51 served the beneficent purpose of reforming Irish agriculture, the novel should not be read as the Malthusian tract, inartistically yoked to a pallid romance, which most recent critics describe....
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| Veröffentlicht in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/cve, |
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| 1. Verfasser: | |
| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Sprache: | Anglais |
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Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens
2026
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| Online Zugang: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Zusammenfassung: | Despite the fact that the narrator of Trollope’s Castle Richmond argues that the potato famine of 1845-51 served the beneficent purpose of reforming Irish agriculture, the novel should not be read as the Malthusian tract, inartistically yoked to a pallid romance, which most recent critics describe. Through tensions between its formal elements, the novel generates a mass of ironies that cannot be completely disentangled. In particular, the novel’s unconvincing romantic main plot is in tension with the grim subplot concerning the famine. No clearly-implied authorial view of the famine emerges, but a space does open up between the Malthusian voice of the narrator and the views of an implied author whose most salient characteristic is uncertainty. |
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