Language, Science and Popular Fiction in the Victorian Fin-de-Siècle: The Brutal TongueRoutledge, 2017 M03 2 - 190 pages Christine Ferguson's timely study is the first comprehensive examination of the importance of language in forming a crucial nexus among popular fiction, biology, and philology at the Victorian fin-de-siècle. Focusing on a variety of literary and non-literary texts, the book maps out the dialogue between the Victorian life and social sciences most involved in the study of language and the literary genre frequently indicted for causing linguistic corruption and debasement - popular fiction. Ferguson demonstrates how Darwinian biological, philological, and anthropological accounts of 'primitive' and animal language were co-opted into wider cultural debates about the apparent brutality of popular fiction, and shows how popular novelists such as Marie Corelli, Grant Allen, H.G. Wells, H. Rider Haggard, and Bram Stoker used their fantastic narratives to radically reformulate the relationships among language, thought, and progress that underwrote much of the contemporary prejudice against mass literary taste. In its alignment of scientific, cultural, and popular discourses of human language, Language, Science, and Popular Fiction in the Victorian Fin-de-Siècle stands as a corrective to assessments of best-selling fiction's intellectual, ideological, and aesthetic simplicity. |
Contents
What Does Brutal Language Mean? | |
The Voice of the People | |
Savage Articulations in the Romances of Grant Allen | |
The Law and the Larynx | |
Standard English at Stake in Stokers Dracula | |
Epilogue | |
Other editions - View all
Language, Science and Popular Fiction in the Victorian Fin-De-Siècle: The ... Christine Ferguson No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
ability abstract African animal language animal rights anthropological anthropologists argued Arthur Holmwood beautiful become Britain British British Barbarians brutal brute civilization claimed colonial communication contemporary critics cultural Darwin Despite dialect dictionary difference Dracula English English language European evidence evolutionary fin-de-siècle Garner Grant Allen Harker human language identity imagined imperialism instincts intellectual island John Creedy language origin late Victorian less linguistic humanism literary literature London Marie Corelli mass Max Müller meaning mental Mina Harker modern monkey moral Moreau Muriel narrative nature never nineteenth century non-standard nonetheless period philologists philology popular fiction Prendick primitive primitivism purity race racial readers recognize relationship Review Rimânez savage language savagery Science scientific seems Simian social Sorrows of Satan speak speakers species speech spiritual standard style suggests Taboo Tempest theory thought transformation Trench uttered vampire Van Helsing Victorian vivisection Wells's Wilhelm Bleek Woman words writing