Victorian fetishism : intellectuals and primitives / Peter Melville Logan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Logan, Peter Melville, 1951-

Series:

SUNY series, studies in the long nineteenth century.

SUNY series, studies in the long nineteenth century

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English prose literature--19th century--History and criticism.

Culture--Philosophy--History--19th century.

Criticism--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Culture in literature.

Fetishism in literature.

Primitivism in literature.

Great Britain--Intellectual life--19th century.

Arnold, Matthew, 1822-1888--Criticism and interpretation.

Eliot, George, 1819-1880--Criticism and interpretation.

Tylor, Edward B. (Edward Burnett), 1832-1917--Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (221 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Victorian Fetishism argues that fetishism was central to the development of cultural theory in the nineteenth century. From 1850 to 1900, when theories of social evolution reached their peak, European intellectuals identified all "primitive" cultures with "Primitive Fetishism," a psychological form of self-projection in which people believe everything in the external world—thunderstorms, trees, stones—is alive. Placing themselves at the opposite extreme of cultural evolution, the Victorians defined culture not by describing what culture was but by describing what it was not, and what it was not was fetishism. In analyses of major works by Matthew Arnold, George Eliot, and Edward B. Tylor, Peter Melville Logan demonstrates the paradoxical role of fetishism in Victorian cultural theory, namely, how Victorian writers projected their own assumptions about fetishism onto the realm of historical fact, thereby "fetishizing" fetishism. The book concludes by examining how fetishism became a sexual perversion as well as its place within current cultural theory.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction

Primitive Fetishism from Antiquity to 1860

Matthew Arnold’s Culture

George Eliot’s Realism

Edward Tylor’s Science

Sexology’s Perversion

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

This book examines Victorian discourse on culture.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-193) and index.

ISBN:

9780791477281

0791477282

9781441603647

1441603646

OCLC:

316432611