پزشک در رمان ویکتوریایی: شیوه‌های خانوادگی

With the character of the doctor as her subject, Tabitha Sparks follows the decline of the marriage plot in the Victorian novel. As Victorians came to terms with the scientific revolution in medicine of the mid-to-late nineteenth century, the novel's progressive distance from the conventions of the marriage plot can be indexed through a rising identification of the doctor with scientific empiricism. A narrative's stance towards scientific reason, Sparks argues, is revealed by the fictional doctor's relationship to the marriage plot. Thus, novels that feature romantic doctors almost invariably deny the authority of empiricism, as is the case in George MacDonald's Adela Cathcart. In contrast, works such as Wilkie Collins's "Heart and Science", which highlight clinically minded or even sinister doctors, uphold the determining logic of science and, in turn, threaten the novel's romantic plot. By focusing on the figure of the doctor rather than on a scientific theme or medical field, Sparks emulates the Victorian novel's personalization of tropes and belief systems, using the realism associated with the doctor to chart the sustainability of the Victorian novel's central imaginative structure, the marriage plot. As the doctors Sparks examines increasingly stand in for the encroachment of empirical knowledge on a morally formulated artistic genre, their alienation from the marriage plot and its interrelated decline succinctly herald the end of the Victorian era and the beginning of Modernism.

With the character of the doctor as her subject, Tabitha Sparks follows the decline of the marriage plot in the Victorian novel. As Victorians came to terms with the scientific revolution in medicine of the mid-to-late nineteenth century, the novel's progressive distance from the conventions of the marriage plot can be indexed through a rising identification of the doctor with scientific empiricism. A narrative's stance towards scientific reason, Sparks argues, is revealed by the fictional doctor's relationship to the marriage plot. Thus, novels that feature romantic doctors almost invariably deny the authority of empiricism, as is the case in George MacDonald's Adela Cathcart. In contrast, works such as Wilkie Collins's Heart and Science, which highlight clinically minded or even sinister doctors, uphold the determining logic of science and, in turn, threaten the novel's romantic plot.

By focusing on the figure of the doctor rather than on a scientific theme or medical field, Sparks emulates the Victorian novel's personalization of tropes and belief systems, using the realism associated with the doctor to chart the sustainability of the Victorian novel's central imaginative structure, the marriage plot. As the doctors Sparks examines increasingly stand in for the encroachment of empirical knowledge on a morally formulated artistic genre, their alienation from the marriage plot and its interrelated decline succinctly herald the end of the Victorian era and the beginning of Modernism.

Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgements......Page 8 Introduction......Page 10 1 Doctoring the Marriage Plot: Harriet Martineau's Deerbrook and George Eliot's Middlemarch......Page 32 2 Textual Healing: George MacDonald's Adela Cathcart......Page 56 3 Marital Malpractice at Mid-Century: Braddon's The Doctor's Wife and Gaskell's Wives and Daughters......Page 72 4 Myopic Medicine and Far-Sighted Femininity: Wilkie Collins's Armadale and Heart and Science......Page 96 5 New Women, Avenging Doctors: Gothic Medicine in Bram Stoker and Arthur Machen......Page 120 6 The "Fair Physician": Female Doctors and the Late-Century Marriage Plot......Page 142 Conclusion: "The Overstimulated Nerve Ceases to Respond": Arthur Conan Doyle's Medical Modernism......Page 166 Bibliography......Page 172 Index......Page 182 Doctoring The Marriage Plot : Harriet Martineau's Deerbrook And George Eliot's Middlemarch -- Textual Healing : George Macdonald's Adela Cathcart -- Medical Malpractice At Mid-century : Braddon's The Doctor's Wife And Gaskell's Wives And Daughters -- Myopic Medicine And Far-sighted Femininity : Wilkie Collins's Armadale And Heart And Science -- New Women, Avenging Doctors : Gothic Medicine In Bram Stoker And Arthur Machen -- The Fair Physician : Female Doctors And The Late-century Marriage Plot -- Conclusion : The Overstimulated Nerve Ceases To Respond : Arthur Conan Doyle's Medical Modernism. Tabitha Sparks. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [163]-172) And Index. Doctoring the marriage plot : Harriet Martineau's Deerbrook and George Eliot's Middlemarch Marital malpractice at the mid-century : Mary Braddon's The doctor's wife and Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and daughters Textual healing : George MacDonald's Adela Cathcart Myopic medicine and far-sighted femininity : Wilkie Collins's Armadale and Heart and science New women, avenging doctors : gothic medicine in Bram Stoker and Arthur Machen The "fair physician" : female doctors and the late-century marriage plot "The overstimulated nerve ceases to respond" : Arthur Conan Doyle's medical modernism. Following the decline of the marriage plot in Victorian novels by a range of novelists, including Harriet Martineau, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, George MacDonald, and Bram Stoker, Tabitha Sparks argues that a narrative's stance towards scientific reason is revealed in the figure of the doctor. Novels with romantic doctors deny the authority of empiricism, while those with clinically minded doctors uphold the determining logic of science and threaten the novel's romantic plot By focusing on the figure of the doctor rather than on a scientific theme or medical field, this title emulates the Victorian novel's personalization of tropes and belief systems, using the realism associated with the doctor to chart the sustainability of the Victorian novel's central imaginative structure, the marriage plot.