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Neo-Victorian Madness

Rediagnosing Nineteenth-Century Mental Illness in Literature and Other Media

von: Sarah E. Maier, Brenda Ayres
128,39 €
Verlag:	Palgrave Macmillan
Format:	PDF
Veröffentl.:	01.06.2020
ISBN/EAN:	9783030465827
Sprache:	englisch

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Beschreibungen

Titelbeschreibung

<div>Neo-Victorian Madness: Rediagnosing Nineteenth-Century Mental Illness in Literature and Other Media investigates contemporary fiction, cinema and television shows set in the Victorian period that depict mad murderers, lunatic doctors, social dis/ease and madhouses as if many Victorians were “mad.” Such portraits demand a “rediagnosing” of mental illness that was often reduced to only female hysteria or a general malaise in nineteenth-century renditions. This collection of essays explores questions of neo-Victorian representations of moral insanity, mental illness, disturbed psyches or non-normative imaginings as well as considers the important issues of legal righteousness, social responsibility or methods of restraint and corrupt incarcerations. The chapters investigate the self-conscious re-visions, legacies and lessons of nineteenth-century discourses of madness and/or those persons presumed mad rediagnosed by present-day (neo-Victorian) representations informed by post-nineteenth-century psychological insights. </div>

Inhaltsverzeichnis

<div><div>Chapter 1/Introduction: Neo-Victorian Maladies of the Mind, Brenda Ayres and Sarah E. Maier.- Chapter 2/“I Am Not an Angel”: Madness and Addiction in Neo–Victorian Appropriations of Jane Eyre, Kate Faber Oestreich.- Chapter 3/ “We Should Go Mad”: The Madwoman and Her Nurse, Rachel M. Friars and Brenda Ayres.- Chapter 4/The Daughters of Bertha Mason: Caribbean Madwomen in Laura Fish’s Strange Music, Olivia Tjon-A-Meeuw.- Chapter 5/“A Necessary Madness”: PTSD in Mary Balogh’s Survivors’ Club Novels, Brenda Ayres.- Chapter 6/Unreliable Neo-Victorian Narrators, “Unwomen,” and Femmes Fatales: Nell Lyshon’s The Colour of Milk and Jane Harris’ Gillespie and I, Eckart Voigts.- Chapter 7/“Dear Holy Sister”: Narrating Madness, Bodily Horror and Religious Ecstasy in Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White, Marshall Needleman Armintor.- Chapter 8/The Unmentionable Madness of Being a Woman, Brenda Ayres and Sarah E. Maier.- Chapter 9/ Queering the Madwoman: A Mad/Queer Narrative in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace and Its Adaptation, Barbara Braid.- Chapter 10/Old Monsters, Old Curses: The New Hysterical Woman and Penny Dreadful, Tim Posada.- Chapter 11/The Glamorisation of Mental Illness in BBC’s Sherlock, John C. Murray.- Chapter 12/ Gendered (De)Illusions: Imaginative Madness in Neo-Victorian Childhood Trauma Narratives, Sarah E. Maier.</div></div><div> </div>

Autorenportrait

Sarah E. Maier is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of New Brunswick Saint John, Canada.

Brenda Ayres teaches online courses for Liberty University and Southern New Hampshire University, USA.

Maier and Ayres have coedited several collections of essays. The most recent are Neo-Gothic Narratives: Illusory Allusions from the Past (2020), Animals and Their Children in Victorian Culture (2019) and Reinventing Marie Corelli for the Twenty-first Century (2019).

Back cover copy

Neo-Victorian Madness: Rediagnosing Nineteenth-Century Mental Illness in Literature and Other Media investigates contemporary fiction, cinema and television shows set in the Victorian period that depict mad murderers, lunatic doctors, social dis/ease and madhouses as if many Victorians were “mad.” Such portraits demand a “rediagnosing” of mental illness that was often reduced to only female hysteria or a general malaise in nineteenth-century renditions. This collection of essays explores questions of neo-Victorian representations of moral insanity, mental illness, disturbed psyches or non-normative imaginings as well as considers the important issues of legal righteousness, social responsibility or methods of restraint and corrupt incarcerations. The chapters investigate the self-conscious re-visions, legacies and lessons of nineteenth-century discourses of madness and/or those persons presumed mad rediagnosed by present-day (neo-Victorian) representations informed by post-nineteenth-century psychological insights.

Sonderbeitrag

Compares neo-Victorian and Victorian texts Studies the treatment of mental illness in contemporary works set in the nineteenth-century Considers how neo-Victorian literature and film attempt to correct the past

Unpublished endorsement

<div>“In this generous volume, Sarah E. Maier and Brenda Ayres gather an engaging variety of essays that offer new insights into the trope of madness that pervades neo-Victorian literature, film and television. Chapters in this collection provide fresh perspectives on a range of examples that revise perceptions of Bertha Mason, that quintessential madwoman in the attic; analyse neo-Victorian investments in nineteenth-century constructions of hysteria; queer and glamorise insanity; and explore imaginative forms of madness induced by childhood trauma. This significant contribution to neo-Victorian studies gifts us an overdue reconsideration of Victorian madness. It shows us how contemporary re-imaginings of nineteenth-century discourses on mental illness can enrich our own self-knowledge and highlights how Victorian attitudes to gender, sexuality and social hierarchy may themselves be construed as forms of madness.” (Patricia Pulham, Professor of Victorian Literature at the Universityof Surrey, UK, and Secretary of the British Association for Victorian Studies and editor of the EUP journal, Victoriographies)

“Neo-Victorian Madness shines a light on nineteenth-century representations of mental health and sexuality and the crucial role played by neo-Victorian fiction, film and television in re-interpreting and re-evaluating classic Victorian texts.  Maier and Ayres bring together incisive studies of neo-Victorian re-readings that challenge our preconceptions.  Stimulating and utterly persuasive.” (Joanne Shattock, Emeritus Professor of Victorian Literature, University of Leicester, UK) 

"Neo-Victorian Madness: Rediagnosing Nineteenth-Century Mental Illness in Literature and Other Media, edited by Sarah E. Maier and Brenda Ayres, brings together two of the most innovative, influential and relevant fields in 21st-century literary studies. With creative expansion and critical engagement, the critics in this volume investigate re-visions, adaptations and legacies of nineteenth-century discourses of madness, as well as the diagnostic and treatment practices of the nineteenth century through a postmodern examination. The book is a welcome addition to neo-Victorian studies.” (Elaine Showalter, Emeritus Professor of English, Princeton University, USA) 

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