Popular fiction in mid-Victorian Britain was regarded as both feminine and diseased. Critical articles of the time on fiction and on the body and disease offer convincing evidence that reading was metaphorically allied with eating, contagion and sex. Anxious critics traced the infection of the imperial, healthy body of masculine elite culture by 'diseased' popular fiction, especially novels by women. This book discusses works by three novelists - M. E. Braddon, Rhoda Broughton, and 'Ouida' - within this historical context. In each case, the comparison of an early, 'sensation' novel against a later work shows how generic categorization worked in the context of social concerns to contain anxiety and limit interpretive possibilities. Within the texts themselves, references to contemporary critical and medical literatures resist or exploit mid-Victorian concepts of health, nationality, class and the body.
| ISBN: | 9780521593236 |
| Publication date: | 27th November 1997 |
| Author: | Pamela K Gilbert |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 207 pages |
| Series: | Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture |
| Genres: |
Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 |
Popular fiction in mid-Victorian Britain was regarded as both feminine and diseased. Critical articles of the time on fiction and on the body and disease offer convincing evidence that reading was metaphorically allied with eating, contagion and sex. Anxious critics traced the infection of the imperial, healthy body of masculine elite culture by 'diseased' popular fiction, especially novels by women. This book discusses works by three novelists - M. E. Braddon, Rhoda Broughton, and 'Ouida' - within this historical context. In each case, the comparison of an early, 'sensation' novel against a later work shows how generic categorization worked in the context of social concerns to contain anxiety and limit interpretive possibilities. Within the texts themselves, references to contemporary critical and medical literatures resist or exploit mid-Victorian concepts of health, nationality, class and the body.
Disease, Desire and the Body in Victorian Women's Popular Novels features in the following genres: Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900
Disease, Desire and the Body in Victorian Women's Popular Novels is available in Hardback
Disease, Desire and the Body in Victorian Women's Popular Novels was written by Pamela K Gilbert and published by Cambridge University Press
Disease, Desire and the Body in Victorian Women's Popular Novels has 207 pages
Yes it is part of Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture series
£89.10