Richard Stang (July 3, 1925 – December 14, 2011) was an American literary critic, author, scholar, and professor whose groundbreaking insights on the 19th-century English novel have shaped the attitudes of subsequent writers and critics for more than six decades. He was the first critic to recognize and document the sophistication of contemporary mid-Victorian criticism of the novel, and to show that it in effect amounted to a holistic aesthetics of fiction for the English novel in the mid-century. Published simultaneously in New York and London in 1959, Stang's ''Theory of the Novel in England 1850–1870,'' was hailed by

Wayne Booth Wayne Clayson Booth (February 22, 1921, in American Fork, Utah – October 10, 2005, in Chicago, Illinois) was an American literary critic and rhetorician. He was the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in English Langua ...

in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction'' as "A systematic, impressive study uncovering 'modern' doctrines about fiction in forgotten publications before James." Stang's subsequent books on

George Eliot Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrot ...

and

Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review (1924), The Transatlant ...

, along with key articles and essays, further extended his cogent questioning and correcting of widely held critical assumptions about the art of fiction. As a professor of Victorian studies and 19th-century literature at

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...

, where he taught for more than 35 years, Stang was an integral member of a vital literary circle that included novelists and fiction writers

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and

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, poets

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, and John Morris, and editor and publisher of ''Perspective'' Jarvis Thurston.

Early years and education

Stang was born and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were Benjamin Stang and Shirley Ducker Stang; his only sibling, his sister Judith, was five years younger. (Stang’s first cousin, the respected character actor

Arnold Stang Arnold Sidney Stang (September 28, 1918 – December 20, 2009)
''

Columbia College in New York, then completed a master's degree in romantic literature at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in 1949. In 1958 he was awarded the Ph.D. in Victorian literature from Columbia University, having studied there under eminent critics

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and Jerome Buckley.

''Theory of the Novel''

Stang’s ''The Theory of the Novel in England 1850-1870'' is a close look at British fiction in the critical mid-century decades when novelists themselves, along with some critics, were for the first time mounting a defense of the novel as a genre and of the role of the novelist as (in the phrase to be used later by Henry James) a sacred office. This “very full discussion” of the purpose of fiction, the form of the novel, and the technical problems faced by novelists, appeared not as a systematic treatise, Stang demonstrates, but in the pages of the English periodical press. Stang reassembles this mid-Victorian discussion, and puts it in context for the modern reader. A review by British critic and novelist V. S. Pritchett in ''The New Statesman'' found that “Stang makes his point that the period was not a wasteland of criticism, and that the critics were strenuously building the foundations on which

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

, the supreme theoretician, was able to build.” Before Stang’s book, Pritchett notes, the extent to which Victorian reviewers had formulated a theory of how novels work was largely unknown “because their work is lost in the files of forgotten periodicals.” The novelists focused on by Stang include Bulwer, Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, Charles Reade, Trollope, George Meredith, and George Eliot. Key critics involved in the extended “discussion” were William Caldwell Roscoe,

Walter Bagehot Walter Bagehot ( ; 3 February 1826 – 24 March 1877) was an English journalist, businessman, and essayist, who wrote extensively about government, economics, literature and race. He is known for co-founding the ''National Review'' in 1855 ...

Richard Holt Hutton Richard Holt Hutton (2 June 1826 – 9 September 1897) was an English journalist of literature and religion. Life and work The son of Joseph Hutton, a Unitarian minister, Richard Holt Hutton was born at Leeds. His family moved to Londo ...

Leslie Stephen Sir Leslie Stephen (28 November 1832 – 22 February 1904) was an English author, critic, historian, biographer, mountaineer, and an Ethical Culture, Ethical movement activist. He was also the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell and the ...

, G. H. Lewes, and

David Masson David Mather Masson (2 December 18226 October 1907), was a Scotland, Scottish academic, supporter of women's suffrage, literary critic and historian. Biography Masson was born in Aberdeen, the son of Sarah Mather and William Masson, a sto ...

among others. “Readers will be surprised to discover how much these writers were concerned with the question of the ‘disappearing author,’ or of scenic versus dramatic presentation, or of how often they discussed the point of view from which the experience was presented; ndmost of them objected to the intrusion of the omniscient author,” Irene Simon wrote in a review of Stang’s book in Modern Philology. “The Victorians did indeed have a theory of the novel,” Bruce McCullough wrote in the summer 1960 issue of ''Criticism''. Stang, he finds, “has brought together an important body of criticism.”

Other studies

Other studies by Stang include ''Discussions of George Eliot, '' (1960; republished in 2011) a collection of 16 essays by 13 critics which provides a complete history of the critical reception of Eliot’s novels, and ''Ford Madox Ford: Critical Essays'' co-edited by Stang and Max Saunders (2002), which assembles more than 70 previously uncollected Ford essays (many of them on the subject of modernism). Important articles by Stang include “The Literary Criticism of George Eliot” in ''PMLA'' (1957); “The False Dawn: A Study of the Opening of William Wordsworth’s ''The Prelude''" in ''ELH'' (1966); and “''Little Dorrit'': A World in Reverse” in ''Dickens the Craftsman'', edited by Robert B. Partlow, Jr. (1970).

Books

*Stang, Richard. ''The Theory of the Novel in England 1850-1870''. New York and London: Columbia University Press and Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959. *Stang, Richard (editor). ''Discussions of George Eliot''. Boston: D.C. Heath, 1960. Republished in 2011. *Saunders, Max, and Stang (editors). ''Ford Madox Ford: Critical Essays''. Manchester, England: Carcanet Press, 2002.

Academic career and later years

Stang was an instructor at the University of Washington (1953–54), a lecturer at the City College of New York (1954–58) and an assistant professor at Carleton College (1958–1961) before joining the faculty of the Department of English at Washington University in St. Louis. He served there as associate professor, professor, and professor emeritus for more than 35 years. In 1969-70 he was a special tutor in Victorian Studies at Cambridge University. He was a Fulbright Fellow (1978–79), served on the editorial board of ''Dickens Studies Annual'', and was a reader for ''PMLA'' and ''Nineteenth Century Fiction''. Throughout his career he was recognized as a consummate teacher who engaged and challenged his students while instilling in them his passion for literature.Stang’s brilliance as a classroom teacher is described in detail by former student and poet Ken Lauter (''Washington University Magazine'' (Winter, 1996), p. 8, and former student and professor Ted Zorn (''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' (December 16, 2012). He retired in 1997. He was married to author and Ford Madox Ford scholar Sondra Selvansky Stang from 1946 until her death in 1990. They had three children. In 1992 he married Webster University photographer and educator Susan Hacker Stang. Stang died in St. Louis on December 14, 2011, of pancreatic cancer.

Notes

Bibliography

* Booth, Wayne C. ''The Rhetoric of Fiction.'' Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1961. * McCullough, Bruce. “''The Theory of the Novel in England: 1850-1870'' by Stang.” ''Criticism'' (Summer, 1960). pp. 312–314. * Pritchett, V.S. “Towards the Edifice.” ''The New Statesman'' (December 12, 1959). pp. 851–852. * Simon, Irene. “''The Theory of the Novel in England 1850-1870'' by Stang.” ''Modern Philology'' Vol. 58, No. 1 (August 1960). pp. 62–64. * Stang, Richard. ''The Theory of the Novel in England 1850-1870.'' New York and London: Columbia University Press and Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959.

External links

* Nathalie Vanfasse, “Grotesque but not impossible: Dickens’s Novels and Mid-Victorian Realism,” E-rea, 2.1, June 15, 2004. (Article on Dickens in an on-line scholarly journal which uses Stang’s characterization of mid-Victorian realism as a starting point.

* Stang’s obituary in the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch''

* Stang’s obituary in ''WUSTL Magazine'' (Washington University in St. Louis)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stang, Richard 1925 births 2011 deaths American literary critics Washington University in St. Louis faculty Columbia College (New York) alumni Academics from Brooklyn Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni