1st Edition

Reading Fin de Siècle Fictions

By Lyn Pykett Copyright 1996
    252 Pages
    by Routledge

    252 Pages
    by Routledge

    The fin de siècle, the period 1880-1914, long associated with decadence and with the literary movements of aestheticism and symbolism, has received renewed critical interest recently. The essays in this volume form a valuable introduction to fin de siècle cultural studies and provide a commentary on important aspects of current critical debate and the place of culture in society.

    General Editors' Preface  Acknowledgements  1. Introduction  2. Nina Auerback, Magi and Maidens: The Romance of the Victorian Freud  3. Sandra M Gilbert, Rider Haggard's Heart of Darkness  4. Linda Dowling, The Decadent and the New Woman in the 1890s  5. Stephen Heath, Psychopathia Sexualis: Stevenson's Strange Case  6. Richard Dellamora, Homosexual Scandal and Compulsory Heterosexuality in the 1890s  7. Ed Cohen, Writing Gone Wilde: Homoerotic Desires in th Closet of Representation  8. Jonathan Dollimore, Different Desires: Subjectivity and Transgression in Wilde and Gide  9. Daniel Pick, 'Terrors of the night': Dracula and 'degeneration' in the late ninetheenth century  10. Elaine Showalter, Syphilis, Sexuality and the Fiction of the Fin de Siecle  11. Patrick Brantlinger, Imperial Gothic: Atavism and the Occult in the British Adventure Novel, 1880-1914  12. Benita Parry, The Content and Discontents of Kipling's Imperialism  13. Edward Said, Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the Histories of Empire  Bibliography  Index

    Biography

    Pykett, Lyn

    "Pykett's book is a valuable contribution to the study of late-Victorian fictions. Taken together, the essays constitute a varied, interdisciplinary synopsis of the cultural history of the fin de siecle, and they introduce scholar and student alike to the tenets and methods of important critical approaches to fiction." - European Messenger