Table of Contents
Preface
Resisting, Conspiring, Completing: An IntroductionImprovement and Moral PerfectionismMoral Perfectionism in the Winter of 1866–67Historical SourcesImplicative and Conclusive Criticism
Part I. The Narrative of Improvement
1. Skepticism and Perfectionism I: Mechanization and DesireStanding Before CamelotSkepticism as Ungoverned Desire: Browning's DukeSkepticism as Mechanization: Carlyle and MillMr. Dombey Rides Death
2. Skepticism and Perfectionism II: Weakness of WillVictorian AkrasiaPerspective and CommitmentHard Times and AkrasiaDaniel Deronda and Second-Person RelationsOrchestrating PerspectivesMark Tapley’s Nausea
Interlude: Critical Free Indirect Discourse
3. Reading Thoughts: Casuistry and TransfigurationCasuistry and the NovelThe Theater of Casuistry: Dramatic MonologuesExemplary Criticism
Part II. The Moral Psychology of Improvement
4. Perfectly HelplessThe Reticulation of ConstraintSigmund Freud and Richard Simpson
5. Responsiveness, Knowingness, and John Henry Newman"An Evil Crust Is on Them"The Violence of Our DenialsWatching and ImitationClose Reading
6. The Knowledge of ShameSkepticism and ShameThree Scenes of ShameEdith Dombey’s ShameShame and Being KnownShame and Great ExpectationsShame and Narration
7. On Lives UnledNailed to OurselvesEnvironments for the OptativeThe Jamesian Optative
AfterwordNotesBibliographyIndex