Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Charlotte Brontë and Victorian Psychology
  • Cited by 128
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
November 2009
Print publication year:
1996
Online ISBN:
9780511582226
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511582226
Subjects:
Literature, English Literature 1830-1900, Psychology, Psychology: General Interest
Series:
Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture (7)
Information

Book description

This innovative and critically acclaimed study successfully challenges the traditional view that Charlotte Brontë existed in a historical vacuum, by setting her work firmly within the context of Victorian psychological debate. Based on extensive local research, using texts ranging from local newspaper copy to the medical tomes in the Reverend Patrick Brontë's library, Sally Shuttleworth explores the interpenetration of economic, social, and psychological discourse in the early and mid-nineteenth century, and traces the ways in which Charlotte Brontë's texts operate in relation to this complex, often contradictory, discursive framework. Shuttleworth offers a detailed analysis of Brontë's fiction, informed by a new understanding of Victorian constructions of sexuality and insanity, and the operations of medical and psychological surveillance.

Reviews

‘Invokes primary sources to explode any persistent myths that Brontë lived in a cultural vacuum.’

Source: New Scientist

‘An excellent, illuminating book.’

Rick Rylance

‘[This] has made a major contribution to Brontë studies and indicated the way forward for further studies of Brontë’s work within Victorian cultural debate.’

Christine Alexander Source: Australasian Victorian Studies Journal

‘An assured and original contributuion to the ever-expanding field of Brontë scholarship.’

Source: Anarchist Studies

‘An impressive, densely-argued book.’

Source: Journal of Victorian Culture

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.