Ghost-Seers, Detectives, and Spiritualists - Theories of Vision in Victorian Literature and Science

Informationen zum Autor Srdjan Smajic is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Furman. Klappentext This book examines how nineteenth-century ghost and detective fiction writers engage with contemporary theories of vision. Zusammenfassung This book is a study of the narrative techniques which developed for two very popular forms of fiction in the nineteenth century - ghost stories and detective stories - and the surprising similarities between them in the context of contemporary theories of vision and sight. Inhaltsverzeichnis Introduction; Part I. Outer Vision, Inner Vision: Ghost-Seeing and Ghost Stories: 1. Contextualizing the ghost story; 2. The rise of optical apparitions; 3. Inner vision and spiritual optics; 4. 'Betwixt ancient faith and modern incredulity'; Part II. Seeing is Reading: Vision, Language, and Detective Fiction: 5. Visual learning: sight and Victorian epistemology; 6. Scopophilia and scopophobia: Poe's readerly flâneur; 7. Stains, smears, and visual language in The Moonstone; 8. Semiotics vs. encyclopedism: the case of Sherlock Holmes; Part III. Into the Invisible: Science, Spiritualism, and Occult Detection: 9. Detective fiction's uncanny; 10. Light, ether, and the invisible world; 11. Inner vision and occult detection: Le Fanu's Martin Hesselius; 12. Other dimensions, other worlds; 13. Psychic sleuths and soul doctors; Coda.

Product details

• Authors: Srdjan Smaji, Srdjan Smajic, Srdjan Smajić
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 21.11.2013
• EAN: 9781107634589
• ISBN: 978-1-107-63458-9
• No. of pages: 280
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Nineteent; Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Natural sciences (general); English, SCIENCE / History, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 19th Century, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, Literature & literary studies, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, Literature: history & criticism, Literary studies: general, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers