Articulating bodies : the narrative form of disability and illness in Victorian fiction / Kylee-Anne Hingston.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hingston, Kylee-Anne, author.

Contributor:

Clyde de Loache Ryals Endowed Acquisition Fund.

Series:

Representations: health, disability, culture and society.

Representations: health, disability, culture and society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--19th century--History and criticism.

English fiction.

Human body in literature.

Disabilities in literature.

People with disabilities in literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

x, 221 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2019.

Summary:

Articulating Bodies investigates the contemporaneous developments of Victorian fiction and disability's medicalization by focusing on the intersection between narrative form and body. The book examines texts from across the century, from Frederic Shoberl's 1833 English translation of Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris to Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Crooked Man" (1893), covering genres that typically relied upon disabled or diseased characters. By tracing the patterns of focalization and narrative structure across six decades of the nineteenth century and across six genres, Articulating Bodies demonstrates that throughout the Victorian era, authors of fiction used narrative form as well as narrative theme to negotiate how to categorize bodies, both constructing and questioning the boundary dividing normalcy from abnormality. As fiction's form developed from the massive hybrid novels of the early decades of the nineteenth century to the case-study length of fin-de-siècle mysteries, disability became increasingly medicalized, moving from the position of spectacle to specimen.

Articulating Bodies investigates the contemporaneous developments of Victorian fiction and disability's medicalization by focusing on the intersection between narrative form and body. The book examines texts from across the century, from Frederic Shoberl's 1833 English translation of Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris to Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Crooked Man" (1893), covering genres that typically relied upon disabled or diseased characters. By tracing the patterns of focalization and narrative structure across six decades of the nineteenth century and across six genres, Articulating Bodies demonstrates that throughout the Victorian era, authors of fiction used narrative form as well as narrative theme to negotiate how to categorize bodies, both constructing and questioning the boundary dividing normalcy from abnormality. As fiction's form developed from the massive hybrid novels of the early decades of the nineteenth century to the case-study length of fin-de-siècle mysteries, disability became increasingly medicalized, moving from the position of spectacle to specimen.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-215) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Clyde de Loache Ryals Endowed Acquisition Fund.

ISBN:

9781789620757

1789620759

OCLC:

1127654857

Publisher Number:

99983685470