1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910823891003321

Autore

Fuentes Peris Teresa

Titolo

Visions of filth : deviancy and social control in the novels of Galdos / / Teresa Fuentes Peris

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Liverpool, : Liverpool University Press, 2003

ISBN

1-78138-694-3

1-84631-438-0

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xi, 216 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Disciplina

863/.5

Soggetti

Alcoholism in literature

Deviant behavior in literature

Poverty in literature

Prostitutes in literature

Social control in literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 11 Aug 2017).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [199]-212) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Title Page; Contents; Preface and Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1: The Miasmas of Poverty: The Lower Classes in 'Una visita al Cuarto Estado'; 2: The Control of Prostitution; 3: The Drink Problem; 4: The New Poor: Changing Attitudes to Poverty, Mendicity and Vagrancy; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index

Sommario/riassunto

This book explores how notions of deviancy and social control are dramatized in the novels of the late nineteenth-century Spanish realist author Benito Pérez Galdós. Galdós's treatment of prostitutes, alcoholics, beggars and vagrants is studied within the context of the socio-cultural and medical debates circulating during the period. Drawing on Foucault's very specific conceptualisation of the idea of control through discourses, the book analyses how Galdós's novels interacted with contemporary debates on poverty and deviancy - notably, discourses on hygiene, domesticity and philanthropy. It is proposed that Galdós's view of marginal social groups was much more open-minded, shrewd and liberal than the often inflexible pronouncements made by contemporary professional voices.