If Madame Bovary's death in Flaubert's 1857 novel marked the definitive end of the Romantic vision of literary disease, then the advent of psychoanalysis less than half a century later heralded an entirely new set of implications for literature dealing with illness. The theorization of a potential unconscious double (capable of expressing the body, and thus also the intimate damage caused by disease) in turn suggested a capacity to subvert or destabilize the text, exposing the main thread of the narrative to be unreliable or self-conscious. Indeed, the authors examined in this study (Italo Svevo (1861-1928), Giorgio Pressburger (1937-) and Giuliana Morandini (1938-)) all make use of individual 'infected' or suppressed voices within their texts which unfold through illness to cast doubt on a more (conventionally) dominant narrative standpoint. Applying the theories of Freud and more recent writings by Julia Kristeva, Bond offers a new critical reading of the literary function of illness, a function related to the very nature of narration itself.
- ISBN13 9781351569347
- Publish Date 5 July 2017 (first published 15 May 2012)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Imprint Routledge
- Format eBook (EPUB)
- Pages 198
- Language English