Samuel Richardson's highly acclaimed Clarissa, commonly read as a courtship novel, is in fact a story about the transaction between Robert Lovelace, a pathological narcissist, and Clarissa Harlowe, his victim, whom he idealizes, yet is compelled to destroy. Anger, Guilt, and the Psychology of the Self in 'Clarissa' shows the narcissistic self-structure that explains Lovelace's anger and need for revenge. It shows, too, the process by which, after being raped, Clarissa reconstructs her self through penitential mourning and deepens her Christian understanding by abandoning her de facto Pelagianism when her own experience of evil provides empirical evidence for Original Sin.

Autorentext

The Author: Victor J. Lams is Emeritus Professor of English at California State University in Chico, CA. He received his Ph.D. in English Literature from Northwestern University. He has published articles on eighteenth-century periodical essays and Milton's influence on Keats.

Zusammenfassung
"In this stimulating study, Lams explores the deepest recesses of the minds of Clarissa and Lovelace, providing the reader with a fresh and illuminating journey through Richardson's great novel." (Gilbert Prince, Professor Emeritus, California State University, Chico)
"Victor Lams' groundbreaking study guides readers of Samuel Richardson's greatest novel through the monumental struggle between - and within - Clarissa and Lovelace. While remaining supremely attentive to Richardson's text, Lams brings to bear, with freshness and sophistication, contemporary philosophers of language and of the development of self to account for the complexity of readers' experiences." (Lois E. Bueler, Author of 'Clarissa's Plots')