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Shirley
Shirley, a novel by C. Brontë, published 1849.
The scene of the story is Yorkshire, and the period the latter part of the Napoleonic wars, the time of the Luddite riots. Robert Gérard Moore, half English, a mill-owner of determined character, persists in introducing the latest labour-saving machinery, undeterred by the opposition of the workers, which culminates in an attempt first to destroy his mill, and finally to take his life. To overcome his financial difficulties he proposes to Shirley Keeldar, an heiress of independent spirit; he himself loves not her but his gentle and retiring cousin Caroline Helstone, who is pining away for love of him and through enforced idleness in the oppressive atmosphere of her uncle's rectory. Robert is indignantly rejected by Shirley, who is in fact in love with his brother Louis, a tutor in her family. The misunderstandings are resolved, and the two couples united. This is Charlotte Brontë's most social novel, and one of its recurrent themes is its plea for more useful occupations for women, condemned by society either to matrimony or, as old maids, to a life of self-denial and acts of private charity. Charlotte told Mrs Gaskell that Shirley was intended to be what Emily Brontë might have been ‘had she been placed in health and prosperity’. |
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Cite this article
MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Shirley." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Shirley." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-Shirley.html MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Shirley." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-Shirley.html |
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Shirley
Shirley ♀, formerly ♂ Transferred use of the surname, in origin a local name from any of the various places (in the West Midlands, Derbyshire, Hampshire, and Surrey) named in Old English from scīr ‘county, shire’ or scīr ‘bright’ + lēah ‘wood, clearing’. It was given by Charlotte Brontë to the heroine of her novel Shirley (1849). According to the novel, her parents had selected the name in prospect of a male child and used it regardless. Shirley had earlier been used as a boy's name ( Charlotte Brontë refers to it as a ‘masculine cognomen’), but this literary influence fixed it firmly as a girl's name. It was strongly reinforced during the 1930s and 40s by the popularity of the child film star Shirley Temple (b. 1928).
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Cite this article
PATRICK HANKS, KATE HARDCASTLE, and FLAVIA HODGES. "Shirley." A Dictionary of First Names. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. PATRICK HANKS, KATE HARDCASTLE, and FLAVIA HODGES. "Shirley." A Dictionary of First Names. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O41-Shirley.html PATRICK HANKS, KATE HARDCASTLE, and FLAVIA HODGES. "Shirley." A Dictionary of First Names. 2006. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O41-Shirley.html |
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Shirley
Shirley
•Burghley, Burley, burly, curly, early, girlie, hurley, hurly-burly, pearly, Shirley, surly, swirly, twirly
•worldly • Berkeley • termly • earthly
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Cite this article
"Shirley." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Shirley." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O233-Shirley.html "Shirley." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O233-Shirley.html |
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