Table Of ContentTHE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO
VICTORIAN LITERATURE
The Routledge Companion to Victorian Literature offers 45 chapters by leading international scholars
working with the most dynamic and infl uential political, cultural, and theoretical issues addressing
Victorian literature today. Scholars and students will fi nd this collection both useful and inspiring.
Rigorously engaged with current scholarship that is both historically sensitive and theoretically
informed, the Routledge Companion places the genres of the novel, poetry, and drama and issues of
gender, social class, and race in conversation with subjects like ecology, colonialism, the Gothic, digital
humanities, sexualities, disability, material culture, and animal studies.
This guide is aimed at scholars who want to know the most signifi cant critical approaches in
Victorian studies, often written by the very scholars who helped found those fi elds. It addresses major
theoretical movements such as narrative theory, formalism, historicism, and economic theory, as well
as Victorian models of subjects such as anthropology, cognitive science, and religion. With its lists of
key works, rich cross- referencing, extensive bibliographies, and explications of scholarly trajectories,
the book is a crucial resource for graduate students and advanced undergraduates, while offering
invaluable support to more seasoned scholars.
Dennis Denisoff is McFarlin Endowed Chair of English at the University of Tulsa. He is the author
of, among other works, A estheticism and Sexual Parody and Sexual Visuality from Literature to Film . He
is the editor of Arthur Machen: Decadent and Occult Works and a special issue of Victorian Review on
“Natural Environments,” founding coeditor of The Yellow Nineties Online, and coeditor of Perennial
Decay: On the Aesthetics and Politics of Decadence . He has recently published on sexuality, the occult,
eco- spirituality, decadence, and the environmental humanities. He is currently editing a special issue
of V ictorian Literature and Culture on decadence and completing a monograph on decadent ecology
and the new paganism (1860–1920).
Talia Schaffer is Professor of English at Queens College and The Graduate Center at City University
of New York. She is the author of R omance’s Rival , Novel Craft , and The Forgotten Female Aesthetes . She
has edited Literature and Culture at the Fin de Siècle, a scholarly edition of Lucas Malet’s 1901 novel,
The History of Sir Richard Calmady, and coedited Women and British Aestheticism as well as a special
issue of Victorian Review , “Extending Families.” Schaffer has published widely on Victorian familial
and marital norms, feminist scholarship, disability studies, ethical readings, women writers, material
culture, and popular fiction. She is completing a monograph on the feminist theory of “ethics of care”
as a new way of thinking about social collectivity in Victorian fiction.
ROUTLEDGE COMPANIONS TO LITERATURE SERIES
Also Available in This Series
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO LITERATURE AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Also available in paperback
Edited by Sophia A. McClennen and Alexandra Schultheis Moore
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE
Edited by Deborah L. Madsen
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO TRAVEL WRITING
Also available in paperback
Edited by Carl Thompson
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO LITERATURE AND RELIGION
Also available in paperback
Edited by Mark Knight
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO INTER- AMERICAN STUDIES
Edited by Wilfried Raussert
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO THE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES
Edited by Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen and Michelle Niemann
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
Edited by John Stephens, with Celia Abicalil Belmiro, Alice Curry, Li Lifang and Yasmine S. Motawy
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO PICTUREBOOKS
Edited by Bettina Kümmerling- Meibauer
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO WORLD LITERATURE AND WORLD HISTORY
Edited by May Hawas
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO PAKISTANI ANGLOPHONE WRITING
Edited by Aroosa Kanwal and Saiyma Aslam
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO LITERATURE AND ECONOMICS
Edited by Matt Seybold and Michelle Chihara
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO TWENTY- FIRST CENTURY LITERATURE
Edited by Daniel O’Gorman and Robert Eaglestone
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO TRANSNATIONAL AMERICAN STUDIES
Edited by Nina Morgan, Alfred Hornung and Takayuki Tatsumi
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO VICTORIAN LITERATURE
Edited by Dennis Denisoff and Talia Schaffer
For more information on this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/literature/series/RC4444
ii
THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION
TO VICTORIAN LITERATURE
Edited by
Dennis Denisoff and Talia Schaffer
First published 2020
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Taylor & Francis
The right of Dennis Denisoff and Talia Schaffer to be identifi ed as the authors
of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-57986-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-50772-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments x
Introduction: Our Victorian Companions 1
Dennis Denisoff
PART I
Genres and Movements 9
1 Poetry 11
Alison Chapman
2 The Novel 22
Elsie B. Michie
3 Short Forms: Serialization and Short Fiction 33
Susan David Bernstein
4 Drama and Performance 45
Sharon Aronofsky Weltman
5 Children’s Literature 58
Jessica Straley
6 Life- Writing 69
Trev Lynn Broughton
7 Gothic, Horror, and the Weird: Shifting Paradigms 83
Roger Luckhurst
v
Contents
8 Sensation Scholarship 95
Pamela K. Gilbert
9 Decadence and Aestheticism 106
Stefano Evangelista
PART II
Media Histories 117
10 Book History 119
Andrew M. Stauffer
11 Victorian Digital Humanities 129
Karen Bourrier
12 Periodical Studies 140
Linda K. Hughes
13 Material Culture 151
Deborah Lutz
14 Popular Fiction and Culture 160
Nicholas Daly
15 Radical Print Culture: From Chartism to Socialism 171
Ian Haywood
16 Visual Culture 182
Kate Flint
PART III
Victorian Discourses 195
17 Victorianists and Their Reading 197
Rachel Sagner Buurma and Laura Heffernan
18 Aesthetic Formalism 206
Rae Greiner
19 Narrative Theory 217
Elaine Auyoung
20 The Ethical Turn 226
Rebecca N. Mitchell
vi
Contents
21 The Future of Economic Criticisms Past 237
Supritha Rajan
22 History/Historicism 248
Catherine Gallagher
23 Liberalism and Citizenship 260
Helen Small
PART IV
Formulations of Identity 271
24 Feminism and the Canon 273
Talia Schaffer
25 Gender and Sexuality 284
Duc Dau
26 New Woman Writing 296
Molly Youngkin
27 Disability Studies 307
Martha Stoddard Holmes
28 The Concept of Class in Victorian Studies 319
Carolyn Betensky
29 Race: Tracing the Contours of a Long Nineteenth Century 330
Irene Tucker
30 The Emergence of Animal Studies 342
Martin Danahay and Deborah Denenholz Morse
PART V
Science and Spirit 355
31 Technology and Literature 357
Richard Menke
32 Brain Science 368
Anne Stiles
33 British Psychology in the Nineteenth Century 377
Suzanne Keen
vii
Contents
34 Anthropology and Classical Evolutionism 389
Kathy Alexis Psomiades
35 Geology and Paleontology 401
Ralph O’Connor
36 New Religions and Esotericism 414
Christine Ferguson
37 Studies of Christianity and Judaism 426
Mark Knight
PART VI
Spatiality and Environment 437
38 Domesticity 439
Melissa Valiska Gregory
39 Regionalism and Provincialism: Where Is the Local? 449
Mary Ellis Gibson
40 Postcolonial 462
Sukanya Banerjee
41 Travel Writing 473
Andrea Kaston Tange
42 Settler Colonialism 485
Tamara S. Wagner
43 Victorians in the Anthropocene 496
Jesse Oak Taylor
44 Why Victorian Ecocriticism Matters 506
Lynn Voskuil
45 Industry 517
Siobhan Carroll
Notes on Contributors 527
Index 536
viii
ILLUSTRATIONS
Ch. 3, Tab. 1 Short Fiction and Serial Fiction by Elizabeth Gaskell 38
Ch. 4, Tab. 1 Number of Publications Listed in the MLA Bibliography in Each Genre from
1920 to 2018 49
Ch. 4, Fig. 1 Visualization of Number of Publications Listed by MLA in Each Genre from
1920 to 2018 50
Ch. 4, Fig. 2 P ercentages of Total Publications for Each Genre Listed by MLA from
1920 to 2018 51
Ch. 16, Fig. 1 Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, “Death of Elaine” (sitters
Charles Hay Cameron, William Warder, Mrs. Hardinge, unknown man,
unknown woman), albumen print, 1875 189
Ch. 30, Fig. 1 Citations of Animal Studies from 1930 to 2019 343
Ch. 43, Fig. 1 H enry De la Beche, “Awful Changes.” Buckland, Francis T.,
Curiosities of Natural History . 2nd ed. Richard Bentley, 1858, frontispiece 499
ix
