Anthony Trollope
Novelist of the “Democratic Revolution”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10436954 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sara Henary (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 83 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 45-68 |
| Publication date | 2020-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Review of Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0034670520000698 |
| OpenAlex | W3107837706 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
Anthony Trollope uses the characters and drama of his “semi-political” Palliser novels to pursue the ends of Alexis de Tocqueville's political science in a lighthearted yet serious way. Describing himself as an “advanced conservative Liberal,” Trollope claims that his “political theory” is expressed most fully in the Palliser novels. Preoccupied with the phenomenon Tocqueville designates the “democratic revolution,” the novels emphasize the historical “tendency towards equality,” consider its social and political implications, and intimate how traditionally aristocratic England might respond to it. While he endorses the justice of the democratic revolution, Trollope shows that it is accompanied by such disadvantages as a decline in human excellence and greatness. Realistic depictions of character arouse sympathy for his view that by adopting a posture of prudent liberalism toward the advance of equality, the English could both reform their aristocratic institutions and rely on those institutions to mitigate the excesses of democracy
Aesthetics · Art · Democracy · Drama · Epistemology · Greatness · Liberalism · Literature · Phenomenon · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sympathy · American Constitutional Law and Politics · European Political History Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |