Falling into matter : problems of embodiment in English fiction from Defoe to Shelley / Elizabeth R. Napier.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Napier, Elizabeth R., 1950-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--18th century--History and criticism.

English fiction.

Human body in literature.

Mind and body in literature.

Physical Description:

xviii, 257 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2012]

Summary:

Napier (English, Middlebury College) considers six 18th-century English novelists, devoting a chapter to each and one of their works. She pays close attention to how the body figures into the budding genre, arguing that the reception to the genre corresponded to a sense of embodiment recovered from Puritanism. At stake in the development of the novel, she argues, is the body's capacity to express and bear agency. She considers the ongoing problems that bodies, and talking about what they can do, present through Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Other novels considered include Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, and Elizabeth Inchbald's A Simple Story. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [225]-245) and index.

ISBN:

9781442641983

1442641983

OCLC:

753229925