The Victorian Supernatural

Erscheinungsjahr 2009
ISBN: 978-0-521-11464-6
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 42, 328 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 477 g

Reihe: Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture

The Victorians were haunted by the supernatural, by ghosts and fairies, table-rappings and telepathic encounters, occult religions and the idea of reincarnation, visions of the other world and a reality beyond the everyday. The Victorian Supernatural explores the sources of these beliefs in their literary, historical and cultural contexts. The collection brings together essays by scholars from literature, history of art and history of science, which examine the diversity of the Victorians' fascination with the supernatural. The essays show that the supernatural was not simply a reaction to a post-Darwinian loss of faith, but was embedded in virtually every aspect of Victorian culture. This important interdisciplinary study sheds light on debates surrounding the relationship between high and popular Victorian culture and contemporary notions of the supernatural.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bown, Nicola

Burdett, Carolyn

Thurschwell, Pamela

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of illustrations; Notes on contributors; Foreward Gillian Beer; Part I. Supernatural Science: 1. Spiritualism, science and the supernatural in mid-Victorian Britain Richard Noakes; 2. Investigations and fictions: Charles Dickens and ghosts Louise Henson; Part II. Invisible Women: 3. Spectral politics: the Victorian ghost story and the domestic servant Eve M. Lynch; 4. George Eliot's prophecies: coercive second sight and everyday thought reading Pamela Thurschwell; Part III. Raising the Dead: 5. Browning, the dramatic monologue and the resuscitation of the dead Adam Roberts; 6. Baron Corvo and the key to the underworld Colin Cruise; Part IV. Envisioning the Unseen: 7. What is the stuff that dreams are made of? Nicola Bown; 8. Holman Hunt, William Dyce and the image of Christ Michaela Giebelhausen; Part V. Imperial Occult: 9. Knowledge, belief and the supernatural at the imperial margin Roger Luckhurst; 10. Romance, reincarnation and Rider Haggard Carolyn Burdett; Part VI. Haunted modernism: 11. The origins of modernism in the haunted properties of literature Geoffrey Gilbert; 12. Afterword Steven Connor; Bibliography; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Bown, Nicola
Nicola Bown teaches Victorian literature and art at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the author of Fairies in Nineteenth-Century Art and Literature (Cambridge, 2001).

Burdett, Carolyn
Carolyn Burdett is Principal Lecturer in English at London Metropolitan University. She is the author of Olive Schreiner and the Progress of Feminism: Evolution, Gender, Empire (2000).

Thurschwell, Pamela
Pamela Thurschwell is a lecturer in English at University College London, She is the author of Literature, Technology and Magical Thinking 1880-1920 (2001) and Sigmund Freud (2000).