What does Criminal Queens have to do with this? Literature and journalism in Anthony Trollope’s satirical novel The Way We Live Now

Abstract

In the essay, in the problem-thematic aspect, the originality of one of the important plot layers of the largest, multi-subject, opening a new stage in the work of Anthony Trollope novel is analyzed – the plot-line associated with the image of the literary and mass-media worlds of the 1870s in Britain. The research emphasis is made on the image of Lady Carburry, to a certain extent the collective image of a female writer in Trollope perception. An attempt is undertaken to fit this storyline into the dominant condensed satirical and sardonic narrative tone of the novel. The essay’s author shows the writer's considerable concern for the harmful influence of the ideology of consumerism on the intellectual elite of his time. At the same time, it is emphasized that the general psychological and characterological principles of the Trollope's artistic world bring the writer to original solution of the problem of the synthesis of satire and psychological analysis.