Neo-Victorian Fiction and Historical Narrative

Hadley, Louisa

doi:10.1057/9780230317499

Cited by 67 publications

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“…The temporal rupture of the spectral, its existence 'out of joint' with secular time, forces us to realise that 'haunting is historical … but it is not dated' (Derrida, 2006, 4). This notion that haunting is historical but not dated has opened the door to an upsurge in neoVictorian fiction that plays upon the strangely spectral intimacies and reciprocities that exist between the nineteenth-century past and a present haunted by its legacies (see Arias and Pulham eds., 2010;Hadley, 2010). This spectralisation of the Victorian period creates multiple possibilities for framing dialogues between past and present.…”

Section: Spectral Timementioning

confidence: 99%

The Spectral Arctic

2018

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Section: Spectral Timementioning

confidence: 99%

The Spectral Arctic

2018

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“…Readers and viewers will be far less likely to notice such manipulation, however, if they fail to register when and how historical and contemporary contexts are deliberately altered or misused to provoke a particular response. Louisa Hadley thus warns of the critical necessity “to be aware of both […] contemporary and Victorian contexts” when dealing with neo‐Victorian texts; otherwise, our “contemporary uses of the Victorians” can effect a distorting make‐over, which sometimes “results in the erasure of the historical specificity of the Victorians” and their actual period context (Hadley, , p. 6, added emphasis). Indeed, the specificity of our own postmodernity may be similarly obliterated.…”

Section: Neo‐victorianism and Presentism: Preliminary Reflectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The lures of neo‐Victorianism presentism (with a feminist case study ofPenny Dreadful)

Kohlke

2018

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Commonly credited with a distinctly presentist agenda, neo‐Victorian works invite readers/viewers to infer seeming parallels and continuities between the 19th century and postmodernity. The discernment of presentism's exact operations, however, presupposes an informed audience with a comparatively high level of historical knowledge and sophistication, which cannot be assumed by works targeting a diverse mass market, as in the case of televisual productions. This often results in mixed messages that undermine neo‐Victorianism's ethical agenda and endorsement of liberal politics, pitting critical self‐conscious engagement with the past against its naïve and unreflective consumption. This essay considers presentism's complex ramifications via an overview of the presentist debate and its application to neo‐Victorian studies, followed by a case study of Season Three of Showtime/Sky's popular Penny Dreadful (2014–2016) series, created by John Logan, specifically the plotline centred on the characters Brona Croft/Lily, Dr Victor Frankenstein, and Dorian Gray. Their triangulated narrative, I argue, reveals a disturbing tension between the series' apparent avowal of feminist ideals and activism, on the one hand, and a parodic skewing of both, on the other, raising issues of potential viewer manipulation and insidious historical distortion.

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“…For others who argue for broader definitions of the neo‐Victorian see also Louisa Hadley's Neo‐Victorian Fiction and Historical Narrative (4) and Kate Mitchell's History and Cultural Memory in Neo‐Victorian Fiction (4–6).…”

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Transnational Neo‐Victorian Studies: Notes on the Possibilities and Limitations of a Discipline

Jones

2018

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This essay explores the field of transnational neo‐Victorian studies, arguing that “transnational” does not so much signal a subcategory of the discipline of Victorian or neo‐Victorian studies as it does a recalibration of one's instruments of analysis and of one's position within a vast constellation of cultural producers and consumers, both within and without the academy. Transnational neo‐Victorian studies requires recognizing the value of what literary critic Juliet John has called “undisciplined knowledge.” It requires, moreover, a collaborative and tentative ethos that is often at odds with the structural realities of the academy. This essay first glosses some of the salient discussions around the terms “Victorian,” “neo‐Victorian,” and “transnational” before turning to an example of a transnational neo‐Victorian text, Japanese manga Kuroshitsuji (黒執事; 2007–) by Toboso Yana (枢やな), and its representation of a Chinese opium den in London's East End, in order to interrogate the possibilities and limitations of the discipline.

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Neo-Victorian Fiction and Historical Narrative

Abstract: Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Cited by 67 publications

References 0 publications

The Spectral Arctic

The Spectral Arctic

The lures of neo‐Victorianism presentism (with a feminist case study ofPenny Dreadful)

Transnational Neo‐Victorian Studies: Notes on the Possibilities and Limitations of a Discipline

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