Wounds and Words: Childhood and Family Trauma in Romantic and Postmodern Fiction

Christa Schönfelder

Open Access Published by transcript Verlag 2013

Wounds and Words

Childhood and Family Trauma in Romantic and Postmodern Fiction

Christa Schönfelder
Funded by: Knowledge Unlatched - KU Select 2016: Backlist Collection

In the series Lettre

https://doi.org/10.1515/transcript.9783839423783

Overview
Contents

About this book

Trauma has become a hotly contested topic in literary studies. But interest in trauma is not new; its roots extend to the Romantic period, when novelists and the first psychiatrists influenced each others' investigations of the »wounded mind«. This book looks back to these early attempts to understand trauma, reading a selection of Romantic novels in dialogue with Romantic and contemporary psychiatry. It then carries that dialogue forward to postmodern fiction, examining further how empirical approaches can deepen our theorizations of trauma. Within an interdisciplinary framework, this study reveals fresh insights into the poetics, politics, and ethics of trauma fiction.

Author / Editor information

Christa Schönfelder teaches English literature at the University of Zurich. Her research interests include Romanticism, postmodern fiction, trauma theory, and gender studies.

Supplementary Materials

Leseprobe

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	1
Contents Open Access Download PDF	5
Acknowledgments Open Access Download PDF	7
Introduction Towards a Reconceptualization of Trauma Open Access Download PDF	9
Chapter One: Theorizing Trauma Romantic and Postmodern Perspectives on Mental Wounds Open Access Download PDF	27
Chapter Two: The “Wounded Mind” Feminism, Trauma, and Self-Narration in Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Wrongs of Woman Open Access Download PDF	87
Chapter Three: Anatomizing the “Demons of Hatred” Traumatic Loss and Mental Illness in William Godwin’s Mandeville Open Access Download PDF	127
Chapter Four: A Tragedy of Incest Trauma, Identity, and Performativity in Mary Shelley’s Mathilda Open Access Download PDF	163
Chapter Five: Polluted Daughters Incestuous Abuse and the Postmodern Tragic in Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres Open Access Download PDF	203
Chapter Six: Inheriting Trauma Family Bonds and Memory Ties in Anne Michaels’s Fugitive Pieces Open Access Download PDF	241
Chapter Seven: The Body of Evidence Family History, Guilt, and Recovery in Trezza Azzopardi’s The Hiding Place Open Access Download PDF	279
Conclusion Open Access Download PDF	315
Works Cited Open Access Download PDF	323

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Edition: 1. Aufl.
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 346
Keywords: Childhood; Novel; Romanticism; Postmodernism; Literature; Psychoanalysis; British Studies; General Literature Studies; Cultural Studies; Literary Studies

eBook

Published: April 27, 2014
ISBN: 9783839423783