Alexander Bove

Spectral Dickens (eBook, ePUB)

The uncanny forms of novelistic characterization

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Drawing on the recent ontological turn in critical theory, Spectral Dickens explores an aspect of literary character that is neither real nor fictional, but spectral. This work thus provides an in-depth study of the inimitable characters populating Dickens' illustrated novels using three hauntological concepts: the Freudian uncanny, Derridean spectrality, and the Lacanian real. Thus, while the current discourse on character studies, which revolves around values like realism, depth, and lifelikeness, tends to see characters as mimetic of persons, this book invents new critical concepts to account for non-mimetic forms of characterization. These spectral forms bring to light the important influence of developments in nineteenth-century visual culture, such as the lithography and caricature of Daumier and J.J. Grandville. The spectrality of novelistic characters developed here paves the way for a new understanding of fictional characters in general.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Penguin Random House South Africa
• Seitenzahl: 256
• Erscheinungstermin: 9. Februar 2021
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781526147943
• Artikelnr.: 61154854

Autorenporträt

Alexander Bove is Professor of English at Pacific University

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction: An uncanny ontology of characterisation Part I Spectral
mimesis: portraits, caricature, and character 1 Mimesis's ghosts:
caricature and anamorphosis 2 Spectral character: dreams, distortion, and
the (cut of the) real Part II "Moor eeffocish things": effigy and the
bourgeoisie 3 Where "the specular becomes the spectral" in The Old
Curiosity Shop and Dombey and Son 4 Imagos, dolls, and other gazing
effigies in Bleak House Part III Beyond the realism principle: spectral
materiality 5 Dream as spectral form in Bleak House and the comic surplus
of Micawber in David Copperfield 6 The "As if" hauntology of Little Dorrit
and the uncanny dream of the three fathers Bibliography Index