Narrative, affect and Victorian sensation : wilful bodies / Tara MacDonald.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

MacDonald, Tara, author.

Series:

Nineteenth-century and neo-Victorian cultures.

Nineteenth-century and neo-Victorian cultures

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English fiction.

Senses and sensation in literature.

Human body in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 217 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2023.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

<i>Narrative, Affect, and Victorian Sensation: Wilful Bodies</i> argues that Victorian sensation novels - long dismissed as plot-driven, silly, and feminine - develop complex theories of narrative affect, our embodied responses to reading, imagining, and even writing a narrative. The popular sensation novel thus should be understood as a key contribution to the novel's assessment of its own workings, especially the ways in which reading and writing figure as affective acts. Additionally, the book radically expands the field of sensation fiction, taking seriously lesser-known female authors, and reading them alongside a range of writers not typically considered sensational. These novels insist that feelings are not bound to a single body and that bodies generate meaning when they are put in relation to other bodies and systems of knowledge.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 07 Mar 2025).

ISBN:

1-3995-2221-3