Spirit becomes matter : the Brontë̈s, George Eliot, Nietzsche / [electronic resource]
Staten, Henry, author.
Staten, Henry,1946-editor.
Traces the development of critical moral psychology in the central novels of the Brontés and George Eliot. This book explains how, under the influence of the new 'mental materialism' that held sway in mid-Victorian scientific and medical thought, the Brontés and George Eliot in their greatest novels broached a radical new form of novelistic moral psychology. This was one no longer bound by the idealizing presuppositions of traditional Christian moral ideology, and, as Henry Staten argues, is closely related to Nietzsche's physiological theory of will to power (itself directly influenced by Herbert Spencer). On this reading, Staten suggests, the Brontés and George Eliot participate, with Flaubert, Baudelaire, and Nietzsche, in the beginnings of the modernist turn toward a strictly naturalistic moral psychology, one that is 'non-moral' or 'post-moral'.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 08 Aug 2016).
The poisoned gift of forgiveness (Jane Eyre) -- Subincision of the ethical subject (Middlemarch) -- What things cost in Middlemarch -- The return to the hearth (Wuthering Heights) -- Spirit becomes matter.
Traces the development of critical moral psychology in the central novels of the Brontés and George Eliot. This book explains how, under the influence of the new 'mental materialism' that held sway in mid-Victorian scientific and medical thought, the Brontés and George Eliot in their greatest novels broached a radical new form of novelistic moral psychology. This was one no longer bound by the idealizing presuppositions of traditional Christian moral ideology, and, as Henry Staten argues, is closely related to Nietzsche's physiological theory of will to power (itself directly influenced by Herbert Spencer). On this reading, Staten suggests, the Brontés and George Eliot participate, with Flaubert, Baudelaire, and Nietzsche, in the beginnings of the modernist turn toward a strictly naturalistic moral psychology, one that is 'non-moral' or 'post-moral'.
Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855.
Brontë, Emily, 1818-1848.
Eliot, George, 1819-1880.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900.
English fiction