From Queen Anne to Queen Victoria. Body & Mind. Volume 8
From Queen Anne to Queen Victoria. Body & Mind. Volume 8
Contributor(s): Dorota Babilas (Editor), Małgorzata Łuczyńska-Hołdys (Editor), Magdalena Pypeć (Editor), Lucyna Krawczyk-Żywko (Editor)
Subject(s): History, Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Romanticism; Victorian era; Victorian society; British literature and culture; 18th century; 19th century; body and mind in literary and cultural texts
Summary/Abstract: The present, eighth, volume of the series 'From Queen Anne to Queen Victoria' continues readings in 18th and 19th century British literature and culture, marking a turn towards volumes defined not only chronologically, but also thematically. It focuses on the issues of personhood, self-identity and the mind, as well as the body, materiality and embodiment, in relation to race, class, gender and the material culture.
Series: From Queen Anne to Queen Victoria
- E-ISBN-13: 978-83-235-6728-8
- Print-ISBN-13: 978-83-235-6720-2
- Page Count: 222
- Publication Year: 2025
- Language: English
Foreword
Foreword
(Foreword)
- Author(s):Lucyna Krawczyk-Żywko
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:7-8
- No. of Pages:2
Introduction
Introduction
(Introduction)
- Author(s):Dorota Babilas, Małgorzata Łuczyńska-Hołdys, Magdalena Pypeć, Lucyna Krawczyk-Żywko
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:9-16
- No. of Pages:8
Rambling and Romanticism: The Right to Roam
Rambling and Romanticism: The Right to Roam
(Rambling and Romanticism: The Right to Roam)
- Author(s):Mary Jacobus
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:17-34
- No. of Pages:18
- Keywords:Romantic literature; poetry; William Cowper; John Clare; Jane Austen; “right to roam” movement
- Summary/Abstract:Rambling and roaming (the words are etymologically connected) form part of a tradition that has provided titles and subject-matter for literary works from the 18th century onwards. Enclosure of public land has long been associated with struggles over freedom of access, whether for grazing animals or for recreational walkers. Privatization and public infrastructure projects have galvanized a comparable modern movement. This article focuses on late 18th c. and early 19th c. writers (William Cowper, John Clare, and Jane Austen) arguing that our contemporary “right to roam” movement has a substantial cultural, literary, and political history stemming from the curtailment of public space and the “confinement” of those who wander, mentally or physically. Both rambling and roaming involve issues about well-being and rights, as well as literary formations and physical freedoms.
A Solitary Wanderer: Tourism and Romantic Subjectivity in William Beckford’s Travel Writing
A Solitary Wanderer: Tourism and Romantic Subjectivity in William Beckford’s Travel Writing
(A Solitary Wanderer: Tourism and Romantic Subjectivity in William Beckford’s Travel Writing)
- Author(s):Przemysław Uściński
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:35-49
- No. of Pages:15
- Keywords:William Beckford; Romanticism; Grand Tour; travel writing; aesthetics; landscape; tourism
- Summary/Abstract:The article focuses on William Beckford’s 1780–1781 letters from his Grand Tour in Europe, collected in 'Dreams, Walking Thoughts and Incidents', referring also to the journal documenting his 1787–1788 travels in Portugal and Spain, to explore Beckford’s writing in terms of the aesthetic, affective and ideological transitions in the cultural conventions of travel writing that signalled the onset of Romanticism. Art collector, bibliophile, writer, and an heir to the enormous fortune, Beckford is chiefly remembered for his outlandish tale, 'A History of the Caliph Vathek' (1786), though his voluminous travel writing has recently received more extensive scholarly examination. The rise of sentimentalism and the early-romantic tendencies in literature had an impact on Beckford’s approach to the presentation of travel experience, visible in the focus on emotionally charged impressions as well as the aesthetic appeal of the described scenes and objects. These features, however, are often intriguingly balanced with the authorial commentary highlighting the ironic distance towards the dominant conventions of travel writing. Consequently,Beckford’s writing often combines sublimity with bathos and learned commentary with highly emotive and eccentric passages that subvert contemporary literary conventions.
“O for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!”: Aestheticist Ideas in the Poetry of John Keats
“O for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!”: Aestheticist Ideas in the Poetry of John Keats
(“O for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!”: Aestheticist Ideas in the Poetry of John Keats)
- Author(s):Małgorzata Łuczyńska-Hołdys
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:51-62
- No. of Pages:12
- Keywords:John Keats; Walter Pater; Romantic poetry; Aesthetic Movement; Art for Art’s sake
- Summary/Abstract:Aestheticism, with its emphasis on the present, its call for intensity of sensation and even excess, its preoccupation with momentary, transient beauty, gives expression to concerns which lie very much at the core of John Keats’s poetry. In the present essay I want to claim that Keats’s poetry is not merely aesthetic (concerned with the creation and experience of beauty) but primarily aestheticist. Hence, I endeavour to examine the complicated dialectic of temporality and permanence, of numbness and heightened sensitivity in Keats’s verse, the dialectic which is expressed persistently through language and images that Aestheticism will claim as its own a mere half-century after Keats’s death.
Searching for Libertalia: Uncharted 4 and Its Reimagining of the Golden Age of Piracy
Searching for Libertalia: Uncharted 4 and Its Reimagining of the Golden Age of Piracy
(Searching for Libertalia: Uncharted 4 and Its Reimagining of the Golden Age of Piracy)
- Author(s):Aleksandra Jarecka
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:63-76
- No. of Pages:14
- Keywords:adaptations; A General History of the Pyrates; Captain Charles Johnson; Captain Misson; gaming; Henry Avery; Libertalia; Uncharted 4
- Summary/Abstract:Through the legend of a pirate colony named Libertalia described in 'A General History of the Pyrates', pseudonymous Captain Charles Johnson seems to question the traditional bases of society, which turns his work into a social commentary. This essay examines selected representations of the pirate haven and contrasts them with its reimagining in the video game 'Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End', with Captain Misson, the founder of this utopian settlement, replaced by another pirate, Henry Avery. It investigates whether the modern interpretation of Libertalia in Uncharted conveys a message akin to the one presented by Johnson, collating the 18th-century plotline with its digital successor. Finally, the personalities of the game’s characters are compared with the motivations of the 18th-century literary rogues. The essay concludes by discussing the allure of Libertalia and its evolution from a symbol of pirate freedom to a story of corruption and greed inserted into a world of mystery and treasure hunting.
The Discourse of Power in Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance; or The Slave of Duty"
The Discourse of Power in Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance; or The Slave of Duty"
(The Discourse of Power in Gilbert and Sullivan's 'The Pirates of Penzance; or The Slave of Duty')
- Author(s):Tomasz Wiącek
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:77-90
- No. of Pages:14
- Keywords:comic opera; discipline; Gilbert and Sullivan; parody; power
- Summary/Abstract:'The Pirates of Penzance; or The Slave of Duty' is a comic opera by William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, which tells a story of a young man, Frederic, who on his 22nd birthday completes his accidental long-term indenture to a group of pirates, which he kept since he was a child due to his nurse’s mix-up and personal sense of duty. When he leaves the pirates, he falls in love with one of Major-General Stanley’s daughters, but his sense of duty again forces him to resume the contract due to an unforeseen legal loophole. Although Frederic, as the titular slave of duty, seems to be the most visible “docile body” in the comic opera’s discourse of power, the other presented characters and groups, such as the Major-General, the local constabulary, the Major-General’s daughters, and the pirates with their King, reflect various power and control dynamics which at first seem less obvious in their interpretation than those of Frederic, but are equally if not more intriguing. This chapter aims at exploring these discourses of power and control in this comic opera through the scope of both the traditional and later theories of power, surveillance, and penalization of the individual bodies and groups.
Pastiche as a Medium for Teaching Sympathy in George MacDonald’s 'St. George and St. Michael'
Pastiche as a Medium for Teaching Sympathy in George MacDonald’s 'St. George and St. Michael'
(Pastiche as a Medium for Teaching Sympathy in George MacDonald’s 'St. George and St. Michael')
- Author(s):Monika Mazurek
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:91-102
- No. of Pages:12
- Keywords:English Civil War; George MacDonald; historical novel; St. George and St. Michael; Victorian novel
- Summary/Abstract:This analysis explores George MacDonald’s use of pastiche in 'St. George and St. Michael', a historical novel set during the First English Civil War. The article highlights MacDonald’s departure from traditional bias in depicting the conflict, providing a nuanced portrayal of characters with diverse political and religious views. It emphasizes MacDonald’s ethical engagement with the past, using pastiche to bridge the gap between Victorian readers and the 17th-century setting. The main characters, Dorothy and Richard, represent the political and religious divisions of the era, demonstrating MacDonald’s commitment to impartiality. The analysis highlights MacDonald’s avoidance of partisan narratives, portraying conscientious individuals on both sides of the Civil War. Further more, it acknowledges MacDonald’s skilful interweaving of historical documents and literature, creating a rich tapestry that enhances readers’ comprehension. The chapter examines MacDonald’s linguistic choices, including slightly archaic language which reflects the speech of the era but also remains comprehensible to contemporary readers. MacDonald’s pastiche serves a profound purpose by helping readers empathise with historical figures and fostering a connection across centuries. In conclusion, MacDonald’s deliberate use of pastiche in St George and St Michael emerges as a meaningful strategy to engage readers ethically with the past, encouraging empathy and understanding across historical and cultural divides.
“I Know that I Exist”: Lorna Gibb’s A Ghost Story as an Assemblage of Matter and Spirit
“I Know that I Exist”: Lorna Gibb’s A Ghost Story as an Assemblage of Matter and Spirit
(“I Know that I Exist”: Lorna Gibb’s A Ghost Story as an Assemblage of Matter and Spirit)
- Author(s):Rosario Arias
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:103-114
- No. of Pages:12
- Keywords:Neo-Victorianism; Spiritualism; ghost; Lorna Gibb; assemblage; networked self
- Summary/Abstract:Lorna Gibb’s 'A Ghost Story' (2015) focuses on the story of the spirit celebrity of the 1880s, Katie (and John) King, narrated by the disembodied voice of the ghost, a first-person narrative voice that moves in and out of time and space. The spirit takes the reader to multiple settings and places (London, New York, France, Russia and Naples), following Katie from spiritualist circle to psychic event (both private and public), revealing the tricks employed by Spiritualism, but also at times fuelling the spiritualist belief through her spirit interventions. 'A Ghost Story' is a neo-Victorian novel, mostly set in the Victorian past, but firmly grounded in our current age, as the text consists of the spirit’s autobiographical narrative as well as several documents and texts, both fictional and real. This way, the novel highlights the fluidity of the multiple elements (bodies, parts, terms) involved in Spiritualism, and in séances particularly, as well as in relation to the ambiguous nature of the spirit. In this chapter I discuss the protean nature of the spirit as a networked self, whose story is retrieved in a self-fashioning mode, gaining agency, and constructing her own story, but also made up of assembled materials, collected by different individuals. Then, I demonstrate that the novel shows an assemblage mode of existence, as part of the network turn.
The “Shows of London” and Late Eighteenth-Century British Novels
The “Shows of London” and Late Eighteenth-Century British Novels
(The “Shows of London” and Late Eighteenth-Century British Novels)
- Author(s):Mary Newbould
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:115-129
- No. of Pages:15
- Keywords:London; novels; statuary; tourism; waxworks
- Summary/Abstract:This chapter explores the experience of domestic tourism to London as represented in eighteenth-century British novels, focusing on Tobias Smollett’s 'The Expedition of Humphry Clinker' (1771) and John Alcock’s 'The Adventures of Miss Fanny Brown' (1761). Both novels, alongside other contemporaneous fictions, incorporate an array of tourist experiences that exemplify the diversity of the city’s entertainments as explored in Richard Altick’s classic study, 'The Shows of London' (1978). They mix together highbrow and “popular” entertainments in such a way as to challenge apparently rigid classifications not only of different types of sight, but of spectator. As such, they contribute towards undermining views prevalent in the eighteenth century regarding educated spectators and those of lower social ranks and, by extension, education levels, typically considered to be more easily enthralled by “crass” shows and entertainments. The novel, itself sometimes derided in the period for being “popular”, provided an apt space for challenging these ideas through recounting the varied perspectives of its protagonists, using a range of narrative strategies. Scepticism towards “wonder” dissolves in the pleasurable immersion some novelistic characters express in a variety of entertainment experiences, a hybridity embodied in the contrasts, and similarities, between viewing the venerable monuments of Westminster Abbey, among them funereal statuary, and the figures represented at London’s popular waxwork showrooms.
“Move, move, everything moves”: The Representations of the Body–Machine Relation in the Literature of Factory Reform
“Move, move, everything moves”: The Representations of the Body–Machine Relation in the Literature of Factory Reform
(“Move, move, everything moves”: The Representations of the Body–Machine Relation in the Literature of Factory Reform)
- Author(s):Małgorzata Nitka
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:131-144
- No. of Pages:14
- Keywords:body; deformity; factory reform; literature; machine; 19th century
- Summary/Abstract:Taking as its premise Tamara Ketabgian’s interpretation of the factory as “a destructive coupling of humans and machines”, the chapter looks into the body–machine relation as experienced and described by industrial workers themselves, and imaginatively transformed by novelists opposed to the factory system. Examples are provided by, e.g., 'A Memoir of Robert Blincoe, an Orphan Boy', 'A Narrative of the Experience and Sufferings of William Dodd, a Factory Cripple, Written by Himself', Frances Trollope’s 'The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong', 'The Factory Boy', or Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna’s 'Helen Fleetwood'. These works belong to the broadly understood literature of factory reform, which sought to urge changes in legislation which would, for instance, raise the child labour age limit and reduce working hours for children and women. A key image present in such texts is that of the labouring body, often the child’s body, implicated into the situation of adjustment, requiring it respond to the regular, often fast, movement of the machine. Workers’ failure or inability to respond, because of the physical limitations, fatigue, and inattention, would result in variously damaged bodies: weakened, abused, misshapen, injured, or maimed. Accordingly, even though workers would occasionally admire machinery for its strength, magnificence, and complexity, they could not dissociate it from antagonistic valences, i.e. its abilities to disable the labouring body.
On the Threshold of Detective Fiction: 'The Mystery of a Hansom Cab' by Fergus Hume
On the Threshold of Detective Fiction: 'The Mystery of a Hansom Cab' by Fergus Hume
(On the Threshold of Detective Fiction: 'The Mystery of a Hansom Cab' by Fergus Hume)
- Author(s):Joanna Kokot
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:145-159
- No. of Pages:15
- Keywords:detective fiction; crime-adventure novel; Fergus Hume; sensation fiction; The Mystery of a Hansom Cab
- Summary/Abstract:Although Fergus Hume’s 'The Mystery of a Hansom Cab' (1886) refers back to the convention of English sensation fiction, popular in the 60s and 70s of the nineteenth century, one can notice there patterns which will later be typical of detective literature. While the reader of a sensation novel was not provoked to solve the detective puzzle (provided there was any) by himself/herself and so to act as a rival of the fictional detective, in Hume’s text the way in which the narrative discourse is carried incites the reader to speculate both on the motive of the murder and on the identity of its perpetrator. Thus, on the one hand the reader is offered an opportunity to “enter” the presented reality and follow the sensational course of events as they “happen”, on the other this reality is revealed as a construction – the tale is a puzzle containing clues necessary to solve it, while the reader is to link the seemingly unconnected elements into one logical whole.
Raping Her Locks Beneath the Trees: A New Reading of Tess d’Urberville & Marty South
Raping Her Locks Beneath the Trees: A New Reading of Tess d’Urberville & Marty South
(Raping Her Locks Beneath the Trees: A New Reading of Tess d’Urberville & Marty South)
- Author(s):Rebecca W. Boylan
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:161-174
- No. of Pages:14
- Keywords:Thomas Hardy; Tess of the d’Urbervilles; Tess’s Lament; symbolism of women’s hair; The Pine-Planters; Marty South’s Reverie; The Woodlanders; selfeffacement
- Summary/Abstract:In our recent global pandemic, many lost their hair to covid fevers. Others, cautious of the dangers of public indoor spaces, forsook barbershop and salon, effecting self-cuts or disappearing beneath overgrown hair. Undeniably, the pandemic violated choice when it came to hair. This chapter studies the loss of Victorian woman’s hair as deprivation of a natural beauty integral to her spirit. Thomas Hardy’s well-known Tess and perhaps lesser realized Marty South of 'The Woodlanders' are raped, the former literally, and both by societies so careless of purity, they force these women to cut their locks to preserve the self. Tess, violated by Privilege in the chase forest, becomes an itinerant dairy and field worker. Escaping a possible second assault she catapults herself into a shade of wounded birds, where in desolation, she bandages her head and half her face as wounded, finishing her self-defacement by cutting off her eyebrows. Marty endures the excruciatingly hard labor of scraping wood for thatching roofs, mostly performed at night in the woods to protect the pride of her incapacitated father. In a forest glen, before a pond’s mirror, she miserably cuts “mine own” luxurious tresses to sell, enabling a rich woman to disguise her balding skull in allures gone faithless more than once. Intriguingly Hardy gives resurrected voice to Tess (“lament)” and Marty (“reverie”) in post-novel elegies, further exposing his era’s abuse of woman’s worth – most especially a rural working-class woman whose largess of compassion emanates from a sculpted crown seized by greedy desires.
“A whole cat world”: Domesticity, Consumerism, and Insanity in Cat Paintings of Louis Wain
“A whole cat world”: Domesticity, Consumerism, and Insanity in Cat Paintings of Louis Wain
(“A whole cat world”: Domesticity, Consumerism, and Insanity in Cat Paintings of Louis Wain)
- Author(s):Dorota Babilas
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:175-187
- No. of Pages:13
- Keywords:cats; Louis Wain; mental health; painting; Victorian culture
- Summary/Abstract:Before being recalled from near-oblivion by the recent film 'The Electrical Life of Louis Wain' (dir. Will Sharpe, 2021), the public’s perception of the art of Louis William Wain (1860–1939) had largely been reduced to a footnote in medical articles on the effects of schizophrenia on human creativity. His quirky, anthropomorphized images of cats involved in a wide range of human activities, as well as his later psychedelic drawings of cat-like fractal designs, were explained as evidence of Wain’s declining mental health, finally resulting in his permanent hospitalization in the last years of his life. On the other hand, during the time of his meteoric rise to fame in late-Victorian and Edwardian England, Wain was credited by his enthusiasts for single-handedly changing the entire nation’s appreciation of cats and elevating the felines’ status from the position of lowly rodent-catchers to pampered family pets. The chapter attempts to argue that both these extreme views are probably ungrounded. There is no direct evidence of the decline in Wain’s skill and style as his mental illness deepened. Moreover, while his work contributed to promoting cats, it also capitalized on the pre-existing wave of cat fancy, well visible in British art and culture in the nineteenth century.
Under the Influence: Charles Altamont Doyle and “The Fairy’s Whisper”
Under the Influence: Charles Altamont Doyle and “The Fairy’s Whisper”
(Under the Influence: Charles Altamont Doyle and “The Fairy’s Whisper”)
- Author(s):Trish Baer
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:189-201
- No. of Pages:13
- Keywords:Charles Doyle; fairies; alcoholism; Fairy’s Whisper
- Summary/Abstract:Did the Victorians really believe in fairies? Scholarly opinions vary. For example, Jeremy Maas suggests that the Victorians “embraced belief in fairies as a reaction to the disenchantment of the world”. Similarly, Charlotte Gere attributes the Victorian interest in fairies as a reaction to “the growing industrialization and materialism of Victorian life”. Carole G. Silver remarks that the Victorians believed fairies were “responsible for the naughtiness of infants”, and, as proof, directs our attention to Charles Altamont Doyle’s illustration “The Fairy’s Whisper.” In Silver’s words, this “sinister” scene depicts “a small adult fairy floating above the head of a large mischievously smiling infant.” Silver quotes, but does not comment on, Doyle’s text below the illustration; “Any body [sic] who has nursed a baby as I have, will recognise the smile I think.” This study establishes that the illustration is a self-portrait. The infant’s expression is inebriated, and the text is a sly self-reference to Doyle’s severe alcoholism. The chapter examines the connections evident in Doyle’s illustrations to 1) his belief that fairies negatively influenced the behaviour of both children and adults; 2) his conviction that his family, due to the whispering of a fairy, was responsible for his incarceration in a mental asylum; and 3) his rationalization that his alcoholism was encouraged throughout his life by a fairy whispering in his ear. Despite his staunch Catholic faith, Doyle’s belief in the corporeal reality of fairies remained steadfast until the end of his life.
Between Musicality and Materiality: Harry Clarke’s Illustrations for 'Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne' (1928)
Between Musicality and Materiality: Harry Clarke’s Illustrations for 'Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne' (1928)
(Between Musicality and Materiality: Harry Clarke’s Illustrations for 'Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne' (1928))
- Author(s):Dorota Osińska
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:203-214
- No. of Pages:12
- Keywords:Algernon Charles Swinburne; bitextuality; Harry Clarke; modernist illustration; Victorian poetry
- Summary/Abstract:Nineteenth-century British culture is an intriguing example of how text and image co-exist. More so, early twentieth-century illustrations often provide a counterpoint to English poetry of the nineteenth century, emphasising that the relationship between the visual and the written is more nuanced than a straightforward semiotic transfer of meaning. In the present chapter, I focus on the dialogue between the illustrations created by Harry Clarke to Algernon Charles Swinburne’s poems, which were published in 'Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne' in 1928. The following discussion is informed by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra’s bitextual theory that considers the special relationship between the image and the text in the context of book illustrations. Clarke represents Swinburne’s works in a compelling way, as the illustrator’s interpretative process not only parallels but also diverges from the lyrical narratives. Clarke’s illustrations prove that Swinburne’s oeuvre is not only based on rhythm but on distinctive poetical imagery. As a result, the example of 'Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne' shows how a complex negotiation between the picture and the word produces new perspectives on how Victorian literature remains closely tied to early-twentieth-century art.
Notes on Contributors
Notes on Contributors
(Notes on Contributors)
- Author(s):Dorota Babilas, Małgorzata Łuczyńska-Hołdys, Magdalena Pypeć, Lucyna Krawczyk-Żywko
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:215-218
- No. of Pages:4
Name index
Name index
(Name index)
- Author(s):Dorota Traczewska
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
- Page Range:219-221
- No. of Pages:3
