Morbid Strains studies the development of morbid formal characteristics in Victorian poetry, novels, and life-writing from the mid-nineteenth century to the fin de siècle. During this period, Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and Michael Field convert the Victorian fascination with death and the body into literary form. While these authors works span a variety of genres, they share a common characteristic: Victorian critics condemned them as morbid. Through readings of lyric poetry, life-writing, and novels by these authors, I show the development of morbid literary characteristics that will later come to fruition in the aestheticist and decadent movements of the 1890s. Critics have noted the important influence of French authors such as Charles Baudelaire, Theóphile Gautier, and Gustave Flaubert on the aesthetic and literary movements of the fin de siècle. This study of morbid forms in narrative and poetic genres identifies a domestic lineage for British aestheticism and decadence in high culture texts celebrated as uniquely British and popular works that seemed to threaten the status of British literature as an art form.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07292010-110552 |
| Date | 09 August 2010 |
| Creators | Meadows, Elizabeth |
| Contributors | Carolyn Dever, Jay Clayton, Paul Young, James Epstein |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07292010-110552/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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