title: Between sympathy and contagion: “Bartleby the Scrivener” and the US charity discourse of the mid-19th century
metadata.name: dc.contributor.author
metadata.value: Urakova, Alexandra P.
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.accessioned
metadata.value: 2018-11-07T15:37:04Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.available
metadata.value: 2018-11-07T15:37:04Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.issued
metadata.value: 2018-09
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.citation
metadata.value: Urakova A. P. Between sympathy and contagion: “Bartleby the Scrivener” and the US charity discourse of the mid-19th century. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Language and Literature, 2018, vol. 15, issue 3, pp. 376–389.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.identifier.other
metadata.value: 10.21638/spbu09.2018.305
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.uri
metadata.value: http://hdl.handle.net/11701/15040
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.description.abstract
metadata.value: The paper analyzes a famous short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” (1854) by H. Melville against
  the context of philanthropic practices and charity rhetoric of the antebellum United States. It
  claims that the narrator, or the lawyer, represents the type of a sentimental philanthropist: he
  feels sympathy and compassion for Bartleby and yet acts in accordance with moral conventions
  and prejudices of his time. Almost all scholars of the antebellum philanthropy point at
  its ambivalence. On the one hand, charity was bearing on the idea of Christian duty and sentimental
  sympathy to the poor and to the destitute, on the other most of the charity practices
  of the period professed the Smithian principles of reasonable economy, or the “economy of
  charity,” to use the term of an American poet Lydia Sigourney. The paper argues that Melville
  employs the stereotypes of contemporary charity discourse in order to pose complex ethical
  questions and suggests an alternative model of relationship between a philanthropist and his
  dependent. For example, such well-known antebellum charity practice as the visit of the poor
  is represented in the story in the grotesque and inverted form. Sympathy is replaced by contagion
  that breaks with the sentimental notion of charity based on the idea of the sameness of
  universal values and sentiments. The article also demonstrates how in Melville’s short story,
  the very idea of charity is removed from the sphere of familiar and canny and begins to verge
  on the uncanny and the on Gothic.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.language.iso
metadata.value: ru
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.publisher
metadata.value: St Petersburg State University
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.relation.ispartofseries
metadata.value: Vestnik of St Petersburg University. Language and Literature;Volume 15; Issue 3
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: G. Melville
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Bartleby the Scrivener
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: benevolence
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: ethics
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: philanthropist
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: unworthy poor
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: visits of the poor
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: sympathy
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: contagion
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: uncanny
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.title
metadata.value: Between sympathy and contagion: “Bartleby the Scrivener” and the US charity discourse of the mid-19th century
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.type
metadata.value: Article
metadata.lang: en_GB
resources.filename: 05-Urakova.pdf
resources.url: https://dspace.spbu.ru/bitstream/11701/15040/1/05-Urakova.pdf
resources.format: Adobe PDF
resources.size: 651,82 kB