My dissertation tracks the production of "common sense" about female sexuality and psychology in nineteenth-century sensational British literature. I move from the sensation novel's heyday, represented by Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone (1868) and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret (1862), through the fin-de-siècle Gothic literary revival with Bram Stoker's Dracula(1895), and conclude with a reading of the representation of aberrant female sexuality in the emergent science of nineteenth-century sexology. For Victorian readers, few things could have seemed further removed from sensation literature--from lurid crime novels to sordid news stories to sexualized science--than common sense. Yet, my project illustrates the role of sensational literature in provoking the dark millennial fantasies that passed as common sense and often animated theories of femininity expressed in late-Victorian science. Common sense retains its rhetorical force through the assumption that its premises arise naturally and apply universally. But if we take a historical view, a troubling pattern emerges: common sense has often worked to preserve reactionary views of femininity. For example, in the nineteenth century, common sense led medical professionals to the belief that a woman's reproductive system left her constitutionally more susceptible to "hysteria." define common sense as the product of the frequent iteration of a particular train of associative logic that results in the naturalization and legitimation of claims about reality, even if those claims are both sensationalized and arbitrary. The rhetorical force of common sense requires the perpetual obscuration of its origins. The elusive and frustrating quality of common sense as a cognitive category derives from its ability, in Stuart Hall's words, to "represent itself as the 'traditional wisdom or truth of the ages,' [when] in fact, it is deeply a product of history, 'part of the historical process'" ("Gramsci's Relevance" 431). Hall describes this type of associative relationship between disparate figures often exemplified in the logic of common sense as "an articulation." What Hall refers to as an "articulation" might also be called, when viewed through the lens of literary theory, a "metonymic chain," wherein the literal term for one thing is applied to another with which it becomes linked, articulated. Both terms—articulation and metonymic chain—effectively describe the illusion of necessary correspondence in mere arbitrary association. My translation of this cultural phenomenon into the framework of literary analysis allows for a precise description of the rhetorical transformations involved in conjuring common sense. With frequent iteration, metonymic association may appear to be based on some more substantial similarity—not circumstantial, but necessary; not the product of sensationalism, but the inevitable conclusion derived from and constituting common sense. Common sense regarding female sexuality has frequently been preserved through sensationalism; but paradoxically, sensationalism is often most effective when its characteristic paranoia seems somehow self-evidently justified, even rational. In other words, sensationalism works best to consolidate the paranoid patterns of associative logic informing the nineteenth-century figuration of femininity when it appears not to be working at all—when sensationalism takes on the weight of common sense.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A presente dissertação tem como objetivo analisar o romance de sensação, gênero da literatura popular, que fez muito sucesso e alcançou tiragens significativas no Rio de Janeiro da virada do século XIX. Com isso, busca-se contribuir para a compreensão da circulação cultural entre romances canônicos e populares, tema ainda pouco estudado pela literatura acadêmica. O romance de sensação será abordado, nos capítulos um e dois, no contexto do processo de modernização do Rio de Janeiro no século XIX que faz com que ele ganhe força enquanto produto estético da vida urbana frenética capaz de produzir sensações diversas a partir de elementos como as transformações do espaço, as novas tecnologias, uma nova forma de viver, bem como pela criminalização, pelo medo, pela fascinação pelo terrível e pela mistura entre ficção e notícia. Argumenta-se, ainda, que este tipo de romance terá seu desenvolvimento propiciado por elementos como o barateamento do livro, uma linguagem jornalística e sensacionalista e adequações estruturais que teriam viabilizado um aumento do público leitor e consumidor. Por fim, no terceiro capítulo, analisamos o romance Os estranguladores do Rio ou o crime da Rua Carioca. Romance sensacional do Rio oculto, do autor Abílio Soares Pinheiro, onde podemos observar as características dessas narrativas de caráter popular, que dialogam com textos jornalísticos e científicos, com estruturas de sedução e composição do folhetim, com audaciosas temáticas que incorporam o submundo da pobreza e do mundo criminoso, ambos marcados pela violência, sangue e sexo. / This research aims to analyze the sensational novel, popular literature genre, which was very successful and achieved significant circulation in the turn of the Rio de Janeiros nineteenth century. Thus, we seek to contribute to the understanding of the cultural movement between canonical and popular novels, a subject not yet very well studied by the scientific literature. The sensational novel, in chapters one and two, will be addressed in the context of the modernization process of Rio de Janeiro in the nineteenth century that makes it strengthened as an aesthetic product of frantic urban life capable of producing different sensations from elements such as the transformations of space, new technology, a new way of living, as well as the criminalization, fear, fascination with the terrible and the mix between fiction and news. It is further argued that this type of romance will have its development brought by elements like the cheapening of printing, a journalistic and sensationalist language and structural adjustments that would have made possible an increase in the number of readers and consumers. Finally, in the third chapter, we analyze the novel The stranglers of Rio or the crime of Carioca Street. Sensational novel of hidden Rio, by Abilio Soares Pinheiro, where we can observe the characteristics of these popular narratives, that dialogue with journalistic and scientific texts, with feuilleton seduction and composition structures with bold themes that incorporate the underworld of poverty and the criminal world, both marked by violence, blood and sex.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A presente dissertação tem como objetivo analisar o romance de sensação, gênero da literatura popular, que fez muito sucesso e alcançou tiragens significativas no Rio de Janeiro da virada do século XIX. Com isso, busca-se contribuir para a compreensão da circulação cultural entre romances canônicos e populares, tema ainda pouco estudado pela literatura acadêmica. O romance de sensação será abordado, nos capítulos um e dois, no contexto do processo de modernização do Rio de Janeiro no século XIX que faz com que ele ganhe força enquanto produto estético da vida urbana frenética capaz de produzir sensações diversas a partir de elementos como as transformações do espaço, as novas tecnologias, uma nova forma de viver, bem como pela criminalização, pelo medo, pela fascinação pelo terrível e pela mistura entre ficção e notícia. Argumenta-se, ainda, que este tipo de romance terá seu desenvolvimento propiciado por elementos como o barateamento do livro, uma linguagem jornalística e sensacionalista e adequações estruturais que teriam viabilizado um aumento do público leitor e consumidor. Por fim, no terceiro capítulo, analisamos o romance Os estranguladores do Rio ou o crime da Rua Carioca. Romance sensacional do Rio oculto, do autor Abílio Soares Pinheiro, onde podemos observar as características dessas narrativas de caráter popular, que dialogam com textos jornalísticos e científicos, com estruturas de sedução e composição do folhetim, com audaciosas temáticas que incorporam o submundo da pobreza e do mundo criminoso, ambos marcados pela violência, sangue e sexo. / This research aims to analyze the sensational novel, popular literature genre, which was very successful and achieved significant circulation in the turn of the Rio de Janeiros nineteenth century. Thus, we seek to contribute to the understanding of the cultural movement between canonical and popular novels, a subject not yet very well studied by the scientific literature. The sensational novel, in chapters one and two, will be addressed in the context of the modernization process of Rio de Janeiro in the nineteenth century that makes it strengthened as an aesthetic product of frantic urban life capable of producing different sensations from elements such as the transformations of space, new technology, a new way of living, as well as the criminalization, fear, fascination with the terrible and the mix between fiction and news. It is further argued that this type of romance will have its development brought by elements like the cheapening of printing, a journalistic and sensationalist language and structural adjustments that would have made possible an increase in the number of readers and consumers. Finally, in the third chapter, we analyze the novel The stranglers of Rio or the crime of Carioca Street. Sensational novel of hidden Rio, by Abilio Soares Pinheiro, where we can observe the characteristics of these popular narratives, that dialogue with journalistic and scientific texts, with feuilleton seduction and composition structures with bold themes that incorporate the underworld of poverty and the criminal world, both marked by violence, blood and sex.

The Woman in White (1859 60), de Wilkie Collins, foi a obra inaugural do subgênero vitoriano conhecido como romance de sensação, isto é, narrativas permeadas por crimes como bigamia e identidades falsas, ambientadas em lares ingleses que, à primeira vista, parecem estar acima de suspeitas, e que introduziam novos segredos e reviravoltas a cada página para prender a atenção do leitor. Feito um panorama das condições materiais que possibilitaram o surgimento desse subgênero, postula-se que o protagonista do romance de Collins, Walter Hartright, edita os relatos dos outros narradores, estruturando a narrativa com mecanismos emprestados do romanesco e do Gótico, apresentando as evidências como se o fizesse a um tribunal e organizando os testemunhos da forma que melhor lhe convém, para assim legitimar sua ascensão social. / The Woman in White (1859-60), by Wilkie Collins, was the inaugural piece of the Victorian subgenre known as the sensation novel, that is, narratives pervaded by crimes as bigamy and fake identities, set in English homes that, at first sight, seem to be above suspicion, and that introduced new secrets and plot twists at every page to hold the readers attention. Following an overview of the material conditions that enabled this subgenre to emerge, I argue that the protagonist in Collinss novel, Walter Hartright, edits other narrators accounts by structuring the narrative with procedures borrowed from romance and from the Gothic, by producing evidence as if in a Court of Justice, and by assembling the testimonials in the way that best suits his interests in order to legitimize his social ascension.

The Woman in White (1859 60), de Wilkie Collins, foi a obra inaugural do subgênero vitoriano conhecido como romance de sensação, isto é, narrativas permeadas por crimes como bigamia e identidades falsas, ambientadas em lares ingleses que, à primeira vista, parecem estar acima de suspeitas, e que introduziam novos segredos e reviravoltas a cada página para prender a atenção do leitor. Feito um panorama das condições materiais que possibilitaram o surgimento desse subgênero, postula-se que o protagonista do romance de Collins, Walter Hartright, edita os relatos dos outros narradores, estruturando a narrativa com mecanismos emprestados do romanesco e do Gótico, apresentando as evidências como se o fizesse a um tribunal e organizando os testemunhos da forma que melhor lhe convém, para assim legitimar sua ascensão social. / The Woman in White (1859-60), by Wilkie Collins, was the inaugural piece of the Victorian subgenre known as the sensation novel, that is, narratives pervaded by crimes as bigamy and fake identities, set in English homes that, at first sight, seem to be above suspicion, and that introduced new secrets and plot twists at every page to hold the readers attention. Following an overview of the material conditions that enabled this subgenre to emerge, I argue that the protagonist in Collinss novel, Walter Hartright, edits other narrators accounts by structuring the narrative with procedures borrowed from romance and from the Gothic, by producing evidence as if in a Court of Justice, and by assembling the testimonials in the way that best suits his interests in order to legitimize his social ascension.

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