Fictions Of Affliction: Physical Disability In Victorian Culture (corporealities: Discourses Of Disability)

Tiny Tim, Clym Yeobright, Long John Silver---what underlies nineteenth-century British literature's fixation with disability? Melodramatic representations of disability pervaded not only novels by Dickens, but also doctors' treatises on blindness, educators' arguments for "special" education, and even the writing of disabled people themselves. Drawing on extensive primary research, Martha Stoddard Holmes introduces readers to popular literary and dramatic works that explored culturally risky questions like "can disabled men work?" and "should disabled women have babies?" and makes connections between literary plots and medical, social, and educational debates of the day. The first book of its kind, __Fictions of Affliction__ contributes a new emphasis to Victorian literary and cultural studies and offers new readings of works by canonic and becoming-canonic writers like Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and others. Reveals the cultural meanings and literary representations of disability in Victorian Britain | "Highly recommended . . . Holmes moves seamlessly from novelists like Charles Dickens to sociologists like Henry Mayhew to autobiographers like John Kitto." —- Choice "An absolutely stunning book that will make a significant contribution to both Victorian literary studies and disability studies." —-Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Emory University "Establishes that Victorian melodrama informs many of our contemporary notions of disability . . . We have inherited from the Victorians not pandemic disability, but rather the complex of sympathy and fear." —- Victorian Studies Tiny Tim, Clym Yeobright, Long John Silver—-what underlies nineteenth-century British literature's fixation with disability? Melodramatic representations of disability pervaded not only novels, but also doctors' treatises on blindness, educators' arguments for "special" education, and even the writing of disabled people themselves. Drawing on extensive primary research, Martha Stoddard Holmes introduces readers to popular literary and dramatic works that explored culturally risky questions like "can disabled men work?" and "should disabled women have babies?" and makes connections between literary plots and medical, social, and educational debates of the day. Martha Stoddard Holmes is Associate Professor of Literature and Writing Studies at California State University, San Marcos. We All Know Tiny Tim, That Familiar Victorian Figure Of Infirmity, Sentimentality, And Charity: Why Do So Many Of The Most Memorable Fiction Characters In Nineteenth-century British Literature Have Disabilities? What Did Physical Disability Mean To People In Victorian Britain - And What Can That Meaning Teach Us About Victorian Culture? In Fictions Of Affliction, Martha Stoddard Holmes Seeks To Answer These Questions By Investigating Works Of Drama And Fiction And Other Writing Of The Period, Including The Personal Testimony Of Victorians With Disabilities. Holmes Finds That Melodramatic Representations Of Disability Pervaded Not Only Novels By Dickens, But Also Doctors' Treatises On Blindness, Educators' Arguments For Special Education, And Even The Writing Of Disabled People Themselves.--jacket. Melodramatic Bodies -- Marital Melodramas : Disabled Women And Victorian Marriage Plots -- My Old Delightful Sensation : Wilkie Collins And The Disabling Of Melodrama -- An Object For Compassion, An Enemy To The State : Imagining Disabled Boys And Men -- Melodramas Of The Self : Auto/biographies Of Victorians With Physical Disabilities. Martha Stoddard Holmes. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 211-221) And Index. "We all know Tiny Tim, that familiar Victorian figure of infirmity, sentimentality, and charity: why do so many of the most memorable fiction characters in nineteenth-century British literature have disabilities? What did physical disability mean to people in Victorian Britain - and what can that meaning teach us about Victorian culture? In Fictions of Affliction, Martha Stoddard Holmes seeks to answer these questions by investigating works of drama and fiction and other writing of the period, including the personal testimony of Victorians with disabilities. Holmes finds that melodramatic representations of disability pervaded not only novels by Dickens, but also doctors' treatises on blindness, educators' arguments for "special" education, and even the writing of disabled people themselves."--BOOK JACKET