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Author Ifill, Helena, author.

Title Creating character : theories of nature and nurture in Victorian sensation fiction / Helena Ifill
Published Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2018

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Description 1 online resource
Series Interventions, Rethinking the nineteenth century
Interventions: rethinking the nineteenth century (Series)
Contents Cover; Half Title; Series Information; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgements; Part I Self-control, willpower and monomania; Basil and No Name; John Marchmont's Legacy; Part II Heredity and degeneration; The Lady Lisle; Armadale; Part III Education, environment and circumstance; Man and Wife; Lost for Love; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index
Summary This book explores the ways in which the two leading sensation authors of the 1860s, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Wilkie Collins, engaged with nineteenth-century ideas about personality formation and the extent to which it can be influenced either by the subject or by others. Innovative readings of seven sensation novels explore how they employ and challenge Victorian theories of heredity, degeneration, inherent constitution, education, upbringing and social circumstance. Far from presenting a reductive depiction of 'nature' versus 'nurture', Braddon and Collins show the creation of character to be a complex interplay of internal and external factors. Drawing on material ranging from medical textbooks, to sociological treatises, to popular periodicals, Creating character shows how sensation authors situated themselves at the intersections of established and developing, conservative and radical, learned and sensationalist thought about how identity could be made and modified
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes In English
Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed March 27, 2018)
Subject Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth), 1835-1915 -- Criticism and interpretation
Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889 -- Criticism and interpretation
SUBJECT Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889 -- Criticism and interpretation
Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth), 1835-1915 -- Criticism and interpretation
Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth), 1835-1915 fast
Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889 fast
Collins, Wilkie 1824-1889 gnd
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth 1835-1915 gnd
Subject English fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism
Personality in literature.
Characters and characteristics in literature.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- General.
Characters and characteristics in literature
English fiction
Personality in literature
Sensationsroman
Literatur
Identitätsfindung Motiv
Englisch
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781526126597
1526126591
9781526126580
1526126583
9781526136275
1526136279