Eavesdropping in the Novel from Austen to Proust

Eavesdropping In The Novel From Austen To Proust Investigates Human Curiosity And Its Representation In Eavesdropping Scenes In Nineteenth-Century English And French Novels. Ann Gaylin Argues That Eavesdropping Dramatizes A Primal Human Urge To Know And Offers A Paradigm Of Narrative Transmission And Reception Of Information Among Characters Narrators And Readers. Gaylin Sheds Light On The Social And Psychological Effects Of The Nineteenth-Century Rise Of Information Technology And Accelerated Flow Of Information As Manifested In The Anxieties About - And Delight In - Displays Of Private Life And Its Secrets. Analysing Eavesdropping In Austen Balzac Collins Dickens And Proust Gaylin Demonstrates The Flexibility Of The Scene To Produce Narrative Complication Or Resolution; To Foreground Questions Of Gender And Narrative Agency; To Place The Debates Of Privacy And Publicity Within The Literal And Metaphoric Spaces Of The Nineteenth-Century Novel. This 2003 Study Will Be Of Interest To Scholars Of Nineteenth-Century English And European Literature.