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The Physiology of the Novel
Reading, Neural Science, and the Form of Victorian Fiction
Nicholas Dames
288 pages
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14 line drawings, 2 tables
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234x156mm
978-0-19-920896-8
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Hardback
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27 September 2007
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- Retrieves and re-evaluates some largely forgotten quasi-scientific Victorian studies of reading
- Discusses the facts of novel-reading - skipping, inattention, speed-reading or skimming, boredom - that literary criticism has traditionally ignored
- Shows that Victorian theories of reading impacted on the practice of novel-writing itself
- Fruitfully connects the currently detached fields of book history, the history of science, and literary theory
How did the Victorians read novels? Nicholas Dames answers that deceptively simple question by revealing a now-forgotten range of nineteenth-century theories of the novel, a range based in a study of human physiology during the act of reading, He demonstrates the ways in which the Victorians thought they read, and uncovers surprising responses to the question of what might have transpired in the minds and bodies of readers of Victorian fiction. His detailed studies of novel critics who were also interested in neurological science, combined with readings of novels by Thackeray, Eliot, Meredith, and Gissing,
propose a vision of the Victorian novel-reader as far from the quietly immersed being we now imagine - as instead a reader whose nervous system was addressed, attacked, and soothed by authors newly aware of the neural operations of their public. Rich in unexpected intersections, from the British response to Wagnerian opera to the birth of speed-reading in the late nineteenth century, The Physiology of the Novel challenges our assumptions about what novel-reading once did, and still does, to the individual reader, and provides new answers to the question of how novels influenced a culture's way of reading, responding, and feeling.
Readership: Scholars in Victorian studies, 19th-century fiction, history
and theory of the novel; historians of reading, the book; those with an interest in literature and the sciences
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Nicholas Dames, Theodore Kahan Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University
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"...hugely impressive work which offers much to Victorianists, book historians, and critics of the novel alike." - Gowan Dawson, Modern Language Review "..it makes an important and original contribution to bringing us closer to Victorians experience of reading." - Michael Davis, The Review of English Studies "both intricate and insightful" - Lisa Pavlik-Malone, Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
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Introduction: Toward a History of Victorian Novel Theory
Part One: Theories of Reading: A Critical Prehistory
1: Mass Reading and Physiological Novel Theory
Part Two: Practices of Reading: Four Cases
2: Distraction's Negative Liberty: Thackeray and Attention (Intermittent Form)
3: Melodies for the Forgetful: Eliot, Wagner, and Duration (Elongated Form)
4: Just Noticeable Differences: Meredith and Fragmentation (Discontinuous Form)
5: The Eye as Motor: Gissing and Speed Reading (Accelerated Form)
Coda: I. A. Richards and the End of Physiological Novel Theory
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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