Charlotte Brontë and Victorian psychology / Sally Shuttleworth.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shuttleworth, Sally, 1952- author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 7.

Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 7

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855--Knowledge--Psychology.

Brontë, Charlotte.

Psychological fiction, English--History and criticism.

Psychological fiction, English.

Psychology in literature.

Self in literature.

Sex in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 289 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Charlotte Brontë & Victorian Psychology

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This innovative and critically acclaimed study successfully challenges the traditional view that Charlotte Brontë existed in a historical vacuum, by setting her work firmly within the context of Victorian psychological debate. Based on extensive local research, using texts ranging from local newspaper copy to the medical tomes in the Reverend Patrick Brontë's library, Sally Shuttleworth explores the interpenetration of economic, social, and psychological discourse in the early and mid-nineteenth century, and traces the ways in which Charlotte Brontë's texts operate in relation to this complex, often contradictory, discursive framework. Shuttleworth offers a detailed analysis of Brontë's fiction, informed by a new understanding of Victorian constructions of sexuality and insanity, and the operations of medical and psychological surveillance.

Contents:

pt. 1. Psychological Discourse in the Victorian Era

1. The art of surveillance

2. The Haworth context

3. Insanity and sellhood

4. Reading the mind: physiognomy and phrenology

5. The female bodily economy

pt. 2. Charlotte Bronte's Fiction

6. The early writings: penetrating power

7. The Professor: 'the art of self-control'

8. Jane Eyre: 'lurid hieroglyphics'

9. Shirley: bodies and markets

10. Villette: 'the surveillance of a sleepless eye'.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-511-58222-6

0-511-00101-0