The Most Dreadful Visitation
Subtitle: Male Madness in Victorian Fiction (Liverpool University Press - Liverpool English Texts & Studies)
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Published: March 1, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 182
ISBN-13: 9780853238393
Subjects: Novels, other prose & writers: 19th century; Literary Criticism; Literature - Classics / Criticism; English; Gothic & Romance; Literary Criticism & Collections / Gothic & Romance
Description: "Victorian literature is rife with scenes of madness, with mental disorder functioning as everything from a simple plot device to a commentary on the foundations of Victorian society. But while madness in Victorian fiction has been much studied, most scholarship has focused on the portrayal of madness in women; male mental disorder in the period has suffered comparative neglect. In The Most Dreadful Visitation, Valerie Pedlar redresses the balance. This study explores a wide range of Victorian writings to consider the relationship between the portrayal of similar disorders in the writings of doctors and psychologists. Pedlar presents in-depth studies of Dickens's Barnaby Rudge, Tennyson's Maud, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Trollope's He Knew He Was Right, considering each work in the context of Victorian understandings - and fears - of mental degeneracy."--Jacket.