Monstrous, absurd, humorous, demotic and contradictory: the Grotesque is a protean force working across different areas of Victorian life. This text examines a wide range of sources and materials in order to provide new readings of an important force that oscillates between "style" and "concept". These essays provide original readings of key articulations of the Grotesque: the literary culture of Ruskin, Browning and Dickens, where it is a sign of the eruptions, intensities, confusions and disturbed vitality of modern cultural experience; the scientific revolution associated with Darwin, where it generates speculation about biological forces, bodily energies, and mutations in nature; and the social and historical literature of Carlyle, where it hovers on the edge of visibility, at once a transgression of the nature of industrial society and its purest manifestation.
- ISBN10 1859283802
- ISBN13 9781859283806
- Publish Date 28 April 1999
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 9 November 2010
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Imprint Ashgate Publishing Limited
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 226
- Language English