The death penalty in Dickens and Derrida : the last sentence of the law / Jeremy Tambling.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tambling, Jeremy, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Derrida, Jacques,.

Derrida, Jacques.

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.

Dickens, Charles.

Capital punishment in literature.

Philosophy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (225 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023.

Place of Publication:

London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2023.

System Details:

text file HTML

Summary:

In the nineteenth century, Charles Dickens backed the cause of abolition of the death penalty and wrote comprehensively about it, in public letters and in his novels. At the end of the twentieth century, Jacques Derrida ran two years of seminars on the subject, which were published posthumously. What the novelist and the philosopher of deconstruction discussed independently, this book brings into comparison. Tambling examines crime and punishment in Dickens's novels Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist and Bleak House and explores those who influenced Dickens's work, including Hogarth, Fielding, Godwin and Edgar Allen Poe. This book also looks at those who influenced Derrida Freud, Nietzsche, Foucault and Blanchot and considers Derrida's study on terrorism and the USA as the only major democracy adhering to the death penalty. A comprehensive study of punishment in Dickens, and furthering Derrida's insights by commenting on Shakespeare and blood, revenge, the French Revolution, and the enduring power of violence and its fascination, this book is a major contribution to literary criticism on Dickens and Derrida. Those interested in literature, criminology, law, gender, and psychoanalysis will find it an essential intervention in a topic still rousing intense argument.

Contents:

Cover

Halftitle page

Title page

Copyright page

Contents

Frequently Cited Texts and Abbreviations

Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction: Growing Up to Be Hanged

Lamb

The pale criminals and the great criminals

The first part: Dickens

The second part: Derrida

Part One Dickens - and the Eighteenth Century

1 Abolitionism and Dickens

Dickens's letters

The Mannings

2 Fielding, Hogarth and Dickens

'Four Stages of Cruelty'

Fielding and murder

3 Barnaby Rudge, Poe and Caleb Williams

Poe, Godwin and Caleb Williams: 'An epoch in the mind'

'The Man of the Crowd' and the criminality of great cities

Dickens, Poe and secrecy

Part Two Derrida - The French Revolution Onwards

4 Deconstruction and Justice

'Force of Law'

The Beast and the Sovereign

5 The Death Penalty Seminars

On fascination

Simone de Beauvoir and Hannah Arendt

On the guillotine: Hugo and Turgenev

'The instant of my death'

Shakespeare and blood

The Death Penalty 2: Confession

Robespierre

6 Decapitation and A Tale of Two Cities

Secrecy

Violence and fascism

'I can devour thee'

7 On the USA: Violence and Terrorism

In Cold Blood and The Executioner's Song

Timothy McVeigh

Terror and suicide

In Conclusion

'New cruelty'

Index.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

9781350354562

1350354562

9781350354548

1350354546

9781350354586

1350354589

OCLC:

1369642472