Victorian demons : medicine, masculinity and the Gothic at the fin de siècle

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

Victorian demons : medicine, masculinity and the Gothic at the fin de siècle

Andrew Smith

Manchester University Press, 2004

  • : hbk
  • : pbk

Available at  / 15 libraries

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [182]-188) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Volume

: hbk ISBN 9780719063565

Description

Victorian demons provides the first extensive exploration of largely middle-class masculinities in crisis at the fin de siecle. It analyses how ostensibly controlling models of masculinity became demonised in a variety of literary and medical contexts, revealing the period to be much more ideologically complex than has hitherto been understood, and makes a significant contribution to Gothic scholarship. Andrew Smith demonstrates how a Gothic language of monstrosity, drawn from narratives such as 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' and 'Dracula', increasingly influenced a range of medical and cultural contexts, destabilising these apparently dominant masculine scripts. He provides a coherent analysis of a range of examples relating to masculinity drawn from literary, medical, legal and sociological contexts, including Joseph Merrick ('The Elephant Man'), the Whitechapel murders of 1888, Sherlock Holmes's London, the writings and trials of Oscar Wilde, theories of degeneration and medical textbooks on syphilis. -- .
Volume

: pbk ISBN 9780719063572

Description

Victorian demons provides the first extensive exploration of largely middle-class masculinities in crisis at the fin de siecle. It analyses how ostensibly controlling models of masculinity became demonised in a variety of literary and medical contexts, revealing the period to be much more ideologically complex than has hitherto been understood, and makes a significant contribution to Gothic scholarship. Andrew Smith demonstrates how a Gothic language of monstrosity, drawn from narratives such as 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' and 'Dracula', increasingly influenced a range of medical and cultural contexts, destabilising these apparently dominant masculine scripts. He provides a coherent analysis of a range of examples relating to masculinity drawn from literary, medical, legal and sociological contexts, including Joseph Merrick ('The Elephant Man'), the Whitechapel murders of 1888, Sherlock Holmes's London, the writings and trials of Oscar Wilde, theories of degeneration and medical textbooks on syphilis. -- .

Table of Contents

Introduction Chapter 1 Degeneration, masculinity, nationhood and the Gothic Chapter 2 Pathologising the Gothic: The Elephant Man, the hysteric, the Indian and the doctor Chapter 3 The Whitechapel murders: Journalism, Gothic London, and the medical gaze Chapter 4 Reading syphilis: The politics of disease Chapter 5 Displacing masculinity: Sherlock Holmes, Count Dracula, and London Chapter 6 Performing masculinity: Wilde's art Conclusion Biblography -- .

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