Clarissa's Ciphers: Meaning and Disruption in Richardson's Clarissa

As Samuel Richardson's 'exemplar To Her Sex,' Clarissa In The Eponymous Novel Published In 1748 Is The Paradigmatic Female Victim. In Clarissa's Ciphers, Terry Castle Delineates The Ways In Which, In A World Where Only Voice Carries Authority, Clarissa Is Repeatedly Silenced, Both Metaphorically And Literally. A Victim Of Rape, She Is First A Victim Of Hermeneutic Abuse. Drawing On Feminist Criticism And Hermeneutic Theory, Castle Examines The Question Of Authority In The Novel. By Tracing The Patterns Of Abuse And Exploitation That Occur When Meanings Are Arbitrarily And Violently Imposed, She Explores The Sexual Politics Of Reading. Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 . Clarissa By Halves -- 2. Discovering Reading -- 3. Reading The Letter, Reading The World -- 4. Interrupting Miss Clary -- 5. Denatured Signs -- 6. The Voyage Out -- 7. The Death Of The Author: Clarissa's Coffin -- 8. The Death Of The Author: Richardson And The Reader -- 9. Epilogue: The Reader Lives -- Bibliographic Postscript -- Index Terry Castle. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. 189-196. In English.