Victorian Literary Mesmerism

Erscheinungsjahr 2006
ISBN: 978-90-420-2008-5
Verlag: Brill | Rodopi

Buch, Englisch, Band 160, 273 Seiten, Format (B × H): 150 mm x 220 mm, Gewicht: 481 g

Reihe: Costerus New Series

Victorian Literary Mesmerism examines the engagement between literature
and mesmerism in Victorian writing. Drawing on recent trends in
interdisciplinary literary scholarship the essays collected here investigate
the complex connections between scientific mesmerism, its manifestations
in the Victorian social and cultural world, and the literary imagination. Here,
for the first time, the varied themes and contexts shaped by mesmeric
practices are brought together in one volume. Mesmerism’s influence on
phrenology, medicine and mental health; its interaction with the occult and
with communication technologies; the effects of mesmeric principles on
gender and sexuality, as well as on criminal behaviour, are all set within the
context of literary texts that interrogate and critique mesmerism’s influence
on the Victorians. This volume will be of interest, therefore, to scholars of
Victorian literature and the history of science, as well as to those interested
in cultural history with a focus on gender, sexuality, and sciences of the
mind.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Willis, Martin

Wynne, Catherine

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Stoffe, Motive und Themen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Martin WILLIS and Catherine WYNNE: Introduction
Ilana KURSHAN: Mind Reading: Literature in the Discourse of Early Victorian Phrenology and Mesmerism
Gavin BUDGE: Mesmerism and Medicine in Bulwer-Lytton’s Novels of the Occult
Anthony ENNS: Mesmerism and the Electric Age: From Poe to Edison
Louise HENSON: Mesmeric Delusions: Mind and Mental Training in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Writings
Tiffany DONNELLY: Mesmerism, Clairvoyance and Literary Culture in Mid-Century Australia
Angelic RODGERS: Jim Crows, Veiled Ladies and True Womanhood: Mesmerism in The House of the Seven Gables
Martin WILLIS: George Eliot’s The Lifted Veil and the Cultural Politics of Clairvoyance
Sharrona PEARL: Dazed and Abused: Gender and Mesmerism in Wilkie Collins
Alisha SIEBERS: Marie Corelli’s Magnetic Revitalizing Power
Mary Elizabeth LEIGHTON: Under the Influence: Crime and Hypnotic Fictions of the Fin de Siècle
Catherine WYNNE: Arthur Conan Doyle’s Domestic Desires: Mesmerism, Mediumship and Femmes Fatales
Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Martin Willis is Lecturer in English at the University of Glamorgan and author of Mesmerists, Monsters and Machines: Science Fiction and the Cultures of Science in the Nineteenth Century.
Catherine Wynne is Lecturer in English at the University of Hull and author of The Colonial Conan Doyle: British Imperialism, Irish Nationalism, and the Gothic.