The Dynamics of Genre: Journalism and the Practice of Literature in Mid-Victorian Britain (review)

The enormous scope of the field in periodical studies makes it certain that scholars will greet any advances toward organization and mapping with enthusiasm. In the absence of systematic approaches to their complexity and multiplicity, the shadings of genre are particularly easy to overlook or oversimplify. Using Mikhail Bakhtin's work to formulate a theory of the interactions of literary and journalistic genres, Dallas Liddle takes important steps toward mapping the variety of genres employed by Victorian journalists. In The Dynamics of Genre, Liddle ably demonstrates that although most scholars read periodicals as a simple single genre, periodical writing consists of a series of related genre templates that evolved with and against each other. Throughout this interesting, clearly argued book, Liddle addresses the question of how periodical genres interact with and affect the literary genres that exist alongside them.

The book traces these interactions from a variety of perspectives. Liddle's opening chapter sets out the basic questions that guide the book, by rereading Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh. Through Aurora's comments about writing in periodical genres versus writing for periodicals, Liddle questions the accuracy of critical claims that periodical work provided a training ground for creative writers. While this may have been true in some cases, Liddle's careful reading of Aurora Leigh demonstrates a real rift between Aurora's conception of herself as a journalist and her competing idea of herself as a poet. Liddle explains that while genre templates may have simplified the task of finding a journalistic voice for both amateurs and accomplished writers, this simplicity may have worked at cross-purposes with the more complex problems posed by literary genres. That is, periodical writing helps Aurora pay the bills, but it cannot hone her skills as a poet or earn her a name as a thinker, and it may even blunt her attention or her poetic sense. Liddle follows this possible rift through the careers of other major figures in Victorian literature and journalism, rereading the works and professional paths of a variety of writers.

Liddle next reinterprets Harriet Martineau's Autobiography. He claims the Autobiography reveals less about Martineau's overall theory of writing than about her ability to transform herself into a writer of whatever genre offered the most authority and mobility at a given moment. Because it was written just as Martineau embarked on a successful career as a leader writer, Liddle argues the Autobiography reflects the values of this rising genre and its most successful practitioners. A later chapter challenges claims that Marian Evans's experience as a periodical writer and editor helped her create the authoritative voice of George Eliot. Instead, Liddle claims George Eliot's authority takes a very different shape than the authority enacted by Evans's reviews. Likewise, he demonstrates that Anthony Trollope's novels offer a clearer picture of periodical genres than we receive from insiders like Dickens or Thackeray, because his outsider status allowed him to record what these discourses looked like to readers. Trollope's failure as a journalist, as well as his success as a novelist and observer of society, allow him to represent the status and reputation of journalists by the reading public. So while insiders argued that Trollope didn't understand the real workings of the press, he did understand how Victorian readers imagined that body and its organs. Finally, Liddle looks at the case of the Rev. Benjamin Speke, whose disappearance led to a flurry of speculation and scandal mongering in the newspaper press. Liddle uses this case to distinguish between the newspapers' presentation of sensational material and their critique of sensation fiction. Many have claimed that newspaper critiques of sensation novels were hypocritical, because the papers also covered sensational stories. Liddle claims, on the other hand, that newspapers actually showed a remarkable consistency in their treatment of sensational materials. The newspapers' speculations about Speke tended toward mundane...