Ethos and Behavior

Dr. Jason B. Jones, English Dept. at Central Connecticut State University, and author of Lost Causes: Historical Consciousness in Victorian Literature (2006), says of Ethos and Behavior:  “Ethos and Behavior is a rich, challenging book . . . Tague uses these novels to dramatize a set of important questions: What is the self, if it isn’t reducible to circumstances?  Does it really make sense to talk about a person ‘changing’?  His wide reading in ethical philosophies signals clearly why talking about the behavior of fictional characters matters, and what the stakes are for changes in representations of behavior. . . . Ethos and Behavior takes seriously questions about how one ought to lead one’s life, and trusts that a rich engagement with philosophy and literature can help us answer those questions.”

Dr. Lori Campbell of the University of Pittsburgh, Department of English, and author of Portals of Power (2009), says of Ethos and Behavior: "Analyzing the ways in which writers . . . confront human behavior is not only reasonable, but crucial to our understanding of their contributions to the novel’s development and to the relationship between art and life at any given moment. . . . I find the aspects of chance versus free will and cultural influence to be the most intriguing, given the prominence and social consequences of uncanny coincidence in all of these novels, but particularly those of Austen and Hardy. . . .  Tague contextualizes the study with an understanding of western society today.  The book is truly interdisciplinary, encompassing history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and anthropology.  With the study of ethics recently taking on added importance and visibility, Tague’s work provides a fresh look at the work of writers whose conflicts and values continue to drive the literature, politics, and social interaction of our own post-9/11 world."

In Jane Austen: Two Centuries of Criticism, (Camden House 2011), Laurence W. Mazzeno says that Ethos and Behavior is "expansive in its assessment of Austen . . ." (225). Unfortunately, Mazzeno cites the book as Ethics and Behavior.

Robert Redfern West, Editorial Director of the publisher, praises the book as follows: “This richly conceived and powerfully argued research study  demonstrates how key English authors of the 19th century anticipate 20th century existential philosophers while grappling with major themes of Western thought: ethical behavior, personal responsibility, and the origins and consequences of individual motives and external incentives.”

Dr. Tague writes in his Preface: “Our argument builds from the controversial quote by Ortega y Gasset: I am myself and my circumstances.  Hence the focus for our thinking is not only the question, Why does a character do what he or she does?  But also, How is he or she responsible?  There is less a question of, I am myself and my circumstances and more appropriately, I do what I do because of who I am . . . . Curiously, these writers believe that circumstance is a byproduct of self: character does not essentially change and in its insistent thrust forward manages the details of one’s life in accordance with its basic tendencies.  In each book, characters play out the drama of who they are fundamentally; while there are social codes and mores, everyone achieves his or her ends through a characteristically individual means.” 

Dr. Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Professor at the University of Lincoln (and editor of the journal Consciousness, Literature and the Arts), writes of Ethos And Behavior:  “Tague’s dense argument is located at the intersection of at least three major areas of current concern and debate.  They are, briefly: the resurgence of interest in ethical and moral aspects of literature and the arts; the ongoing debate of the relevance of fiction for real life; and the importance of the word in the context of the domination of today’s culture by visual stimuli. . . . Tague clearly regards an analysis of the conduct of fictional characters as relevant not only within the confines of historical literary scholarship, but within a wider context of life in the 21st century. The arts overall (re-)claim their relevance beyond the ivory tower and beyond elitism.”

The 393-page book (from its insightful Introduction, through its thorough discussions of fourteen major English novels, to its Conclusion) features an extensive Bibliography (over 340 sources), a comprehensive Index of key terms and authors, and two illustrations from the National Portrait Gallery of London: Jane Austen and Henry James.