Children of the Abbey by Roche Essay -- Regina Maria Roche Gothic Genr

The Children of the Abbey as a Hybrid Text Regina Maria Roche’s 1796 The Children of the Abbey is a text that crosses the boundaries of genre: it at once engages with the conventions of the Gothic novel, the pedagogical text, the national tale, the novel of Sensibility, and travel literature. As an Irish-born British woman writing this novel during the politically volatile 1790s, Roche’s historical and temporal location may provide an explanation for her development of this hybrid novel. In its employment of multiple and potentially contradictory genres, The Children of the Abbey may be interpreted as Roche’s reflection of and engagement with the instability of her time. In order to more effectively understand the political and social implications of Roche’s work, it is necessary to disentangle the various literary strands within the novel, identify how each genre functions, and consider the possible reasons why it has been woven into the text. What is Genre? From Literature as Discourse: Textual Strategies in English and History: Genre thus refers to systems of classifications of types of texts. Genre classifications are part of a broader social system of classifications, not all of which use the term 'genre', but which have the same essential characteristics and functions. Genres (or types of texts) are classified in terms of both the semiosic dimension (primarily conditions of production and reception, matching kinds of author and writing to kinds of reader and readings) and the mimetic dimension (primarily what topics, themes or meanings will be included and what will be excluded, and their modality, i.e. how they are understood to relate to the real world). Sometimes the mimetic dimension is emphasized in a definition... ...plicated by â€Å"its actual [inclination] towards emotion that exceeded utility† (89). As Regina Maria Roche’s novel may arguably be connected to both the genre of the pedagogical text as well as to the novel of sensibility, tension may arise in the text as the two potentially-conflicting genres are both engaged with. Hybrid novels, therefore, may provide both clarification as well as confusion in the interpretation they encourage of their readers. Works Cited: Hodge, Robert. Literature as Discourse: Textual Strategies in English and History. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990. Manning, Susan. "Sensibility." The Cambridge Companion to English Literature, 1740-1830. Eds. Thomas Keymer and Jon Mee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Moynahan, Julian. Anglo-Irish: The Literary Imagination in a Hyphenated Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.