Charlotte Brontė and Victorian Psychology (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Series Number 7) - Hardcover

Shuttleworth, Sally

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521551498 ISBN 13: 9780521551496

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1996

Synopsis

This ground-breaking study successfully challenges the traditional tendency to regard Charlotte Brontė as having existed in a historical vacuum. Using texts ranging from local newspapers to medical tomes belonging to the Brontės, Sally Shuttleworth explores Victorian constructions of psychology, sexuality and insanity, and traces the ways in which Charlotte Brontė's texts operate in relation to this complex framework. Shuttleworth offers a reading of Brontė's fiction informed by a new understanding of the psychological debates of her time.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

This ground-breaking study successfully challenges the traditional tendency to regard Charlotte Bronte as having existed in a historical vacuum, by setting her work firmly within the context of Victorian psychological debate. Based on extensive local research, using texts ranging from local newspaper copy to the medical tomes in the Reverend Patrick Bronte's library, Sally Shuttleworth explores the interpenetration of economic, social and psychological discourse in the early and mid nineteenth century, and traces the ways in which Charlotte Bronte's texts operate in relation to this complex, often contradictory, discursive framework. Shuttleworth offers a detailed analysis of Bronte's fiction, informed by a new understanding of Victorian constructions of sexuality and insanity, and the operations of medical and psychological surveillance.

Review:

"Shuttleworth constructs compelling links among medical, psychological, and literary discourses in mid-Victorian Britain. Carolyn Dever, Albion

"This remarkable survey of the gendered history of botany combines fascinating accounts of individual women's works and lives with a study of changes in the literature of science. ...Shuttleworth's...admirable research in Victorian psychologies demonstrates a critical practice that, implicitly critiquing cultural studies, restores a much-needed specificity to historicizing discourse about the Victorian novel." Dianne F. Sadoff, Victorian Studies

"...sound methodology, accesible structure, deft, thoughtful prose, and critical acumen, making it a model for interdisciplinary nineteenth-century scholarship. Schuttleworth's thoughtful analysis of extensive research in nineteenth-century psychological and medical texts illuminates the literary imagination of Charlotte Bronte...Shuttleworth sheds new light on texts...[she] offers us a more complete and knowledgeable way to understand Bronte's art by understanding the psychological assumptions that inform her depiction of character...Charlotte Bronte and Victorian Psychology is important reading for Bronte scholars, but also for those interested in Victorian medical science...this well-researched, cogently argued book is a substantial contribution to nineteenth-century studies who insights will interest and engage a wide range of fellow scholars." Nineteenth-Century Contexts

"There is a great deal of fine, truly historical work here and also attractive fictions of interpretation of history and Brontė's work, all also displaying a very creative and original mind." John Maynard, Nineteenth-Century Literature

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0521551498
• ISBN 13: 9780521551496
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 308