Creating character : theories of nature and nurture in Victorian sensation fiction / / Helena Ifill

• Autore: Ifill Helena
• Pubblicazione: Manchester, UK : , : Manchester University Press, , 2018; ©2018
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (240 pages) : digital file(s)
• Disciplina: 823.8
• Soggetto topico: English fiction - 19th century - History and criticism; Personality in literature; Characters and characteristics in literature; Literature; Literary Studies: C 1800 To C 1900; LITERARY CRITICISM / General; Ireland
• Soggetto genere / forma: Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Electronic books.
• Soggetto non controllato: Degeneration; Education; Heredity; Insanity; Mary Elizabeth Braddon; Responsibility; Self-Determinism; Sensation novels; Wilkie Collins; Willpower
• Note generali: Previously issued in print: 2018.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Introduction -- Part I: Self-control, willpower and monomania -- 1. Basil and No Name -- 2. John Marchmont's Legacy -- Part II: Heredity and degeneration -- 3. The Lady Lisle -- 4. Armadale -- Part III: Education, environment and circumstance -- 5. Man and Wife -- 6. Lost for Love -- Conclusion -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: This book explores the ways in which the two leading sensation authors of the 1860s, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Wilkie Collins, engaged with nineteenth-century ideas about personality formation and the extent to which it can be influenced either by the subject or by others. Innovative readings of seven sensation novels explore how they employ and challenge Victorian theories of heredity, degeneration, inherent constitution, education, upbringing and social circumstance. Far from presenting a reductive depiction of 'nature' versus 'nurture', Braddon and Collins show the creation of character to be a complex interplay of internal and external factors. Drawing on material ranging from medical textbooks, to sociological treatises, to popular periodicals, Creating character shows how sensation authors situated themselves at the intersections of established and developing, conservative and radical, learned and sensationalist thought about how identity could be made and modified.
• Titolo autorizzato: Creating character
• ISBN: 1-5261-3627-9; 1-5261-2658-3
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910822342803321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II
• Serie: Interventions: rethinking the nineteenth century (Series)