Description |
1 online resource (x, 225 pages). |
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data file |
Physical Medium |
polychrome |
Series |
Liverpool English texts and studies ; 63
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Liverpool English texts and studies ; 63.
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Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-219) and index. |
Contents |
Introduction: Unchaining of the Beast -- 1. City Creatures -- 2. Bat and the Beetle -- 3. Morlocks, Martians, and Beast-People -- 4. 'Beast and man so mixty': The Fairy Tales of George MacDonald -- 5. Oscar Wilde: 'an unclean beast' -- Conclusion. |
Summary |
A critical exploration of travel, animals and shape-changing in fin de siècle literature. Bats, beetles, wolves, butterflies, bulls, panthers, apes, leopards and spiders are among the countless creatures that crowd the pages of literature of the late nineteenth century. Whether in Gothic novels, science fiction, fantasy, fairy tales, journalism, political discourse, realism or naturalism, the line between the human and the animal becomes blurred. Beastly Journeys examines these bestial transformations across a range of well-known and less familiar texts and shows how they are provoked not only by the mutations of Darwinism but by social and economic shifts that have been lost in retellings and readings of them. The physical alterations described by George Gissing, George MacDonald, Arthur Machen, Arthur Morrison, W.T. Stead, Bram Stoker, H.G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, and many of their contemporaries, are responses to changes in the social body as Britain underwent a series of social and economic crises. Metaphors of travel - social, spatial, temporal, mythical and psychological - keep these stories on the move, confusing literary genres along with the indeterminacy of physical shape that they relate. Beastly Journeys will appeal to anyone interested in the relationship between nineteenth-century literature and its contexts and especially to those interested in the fin de siècle and in metaphors of travel, animals and shape-changing. |
Note |
This work is licensed by Knowledge Unlatched under a Creative Commons license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 |
Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
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JSTOR Books at JSTOR Open Access |
Language |
English. |
Subject |
English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism.
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English literature. |
Chronological Term |
19th century |
Subject |
Literature and society -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.
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Literature and society. |
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Great Britain. |
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History. |
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Animals in literature.
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Animals in literature. |
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Travel in literature.
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Travel in literature. |
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Shapeshifting.
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Shapeshifting. |
Chronological Term |
1800-1899 |
Indexed Term |
literature. |
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modern history. |
Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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Electronic books.
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Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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History.
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Other Form: |
Print version: Youngs, Tim, 1961- Beastly journeys. Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2013 9781846319587 (OCoLC)857110258 |
ISBN |
9781781386071 (electronic book) |
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1781386072 (electronic book) |
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9781781380895 (electronic book) |
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1781380899 (electronic book) |
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9781781385524 (electronic book) |
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1781385521 (electronic book) |
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9781846319587 (cased) |
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1846319587 (cased) |
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