Writing Death and Absence in the Victorian Novel

Engraved Narratives

By: Jolene Zigarovich

Write A Review

Hardcover | 21 August 2012 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
210 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
21.59 x 13.97 x 1.27

Hardcover

$101.07

or 4 interest-free payments of $25.27 with

or

Aims to ship in 7 to 10 business days

Writing Death and Absence in the Victorian Novel: Engraved Narratives asks its reader: Why do Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, and Wilkie Collins see the narrative act as a series of textual murders and resurrections? Without a corpse, what body is used for inscription? What does it mean to have an enigmatic ending? And what happens when the mortality of a character is left in our hands? Beginning with an exploration of narrative deferment, suspended mourning, and incomplete burials, Jolene Zigarovich uniquely argues that the missing body plot dramatizes the desire for cultural stability and religious certainty, and that the epitaph becomes the narrative model for rhetorical deaths. Writing Death and Absence in the Victorian Novel: Engraved Narratives traces how the novels in this study are illustrative of not only cultural anxieties regarding mortality, but the modern dilemmas of language, signification, and representation

Industry Reviews

"A sustained and brilliant meditation on the deep intimacy between death and fiction-making. Death is distant, other, never truly our own, and accessible only as a representation the representation of the other's death as ours. Zigarovich's readings demonstrate how the novels of Brontë, Dickens, and Collins render anxieties about mortality inseparable from questions of language and representation, while remaining scrupulously attentive to the material culture out of which these narratives arose. This book contributes decisively to our understanding of the culture as well as the literature of the Victorian era." - Marc Redfield, professor of English and Comparative Literature, Brown University

"Empty tombs, missing corpses, ghostly epitaphs, the rhetoric of loss these are some of the topics that Zigarovich explores with subtlety and theoretical sophistication in her fine study of major novels by Brontë, Dickens, and Collins." - John O. Jordan, professor of English, University of California, Santa Cruz

'These wonderfully lively musings on the Victorian cult of death add significantly to the study of both an historical commonplace and of its uses in five exemplary novels.' - Edgar Rosenberg, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University

Shipping

	Standard Shipping	Express Shipping
Metro postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Regional postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Rural postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95

How to return your order

At Booktopia, we offer hassle-free returns in accordance with our returns policy. If you wish to return an item, please get in touch with Booktopia Customer Care.

Additional postage charges may be applicable.