Trollope in perspective

Abstract

The Thesis opens with a brief summary of the ups and downs of Trollope's literary reputation. In the first chapter the extent of his range and his ability to create characters convincingly are examined. This is pursued further in Chapter Two with an analysis of some of the characters as moral beings and some consideration of the writer’s claim to intimacy with his readers. In Chapters Three, Four and Five, I have looked at a representative selection of the novels in chronological sequence in order to show the development of his art and his ideas together withal steady growth towards ironic detachment. The relationship of individual characters to some of the main institutions of Victorian England is investigated in Chapter Six, while the wider background of the nineteenth century and the ways in which we view it today are the subject of Chapter Seven. In Chapter Eight Trollope's own perceptive view of man is discussed. In the last chapter I have sought to assess Trollope’s artistic contribution in the context of a discussion of some current ideas about the value of literature.