Bücher der Reihe Victorian and Edwardian Studies

This monograph is focused on the fictional works of Arnold Bennett whose literary role was very important in the history of the late nineteenth and early twentiethcentury novel in light of the debate between modernism and the traditional approach to the craft of fiction. After a long period of critical silence, this book reaffirms Bennett¿s centrality through a sociohistorical and semiotic analysis of his most famous novels and short stories. In this sense, it offers a new reading of Bennett which may be a groundbreaking contribution to the discussion of the function of British fiction in the context of a multifaceted epistemic change.

This study traces the poetic development of Arthur Hugh Clough through a methodological approach based on close readings of his most important works with separate chapters devoted to the three great poems of his maturity: The Bothie of Toper-na-Fuosich, Amours de Voyage and Dipsychus. Attention is also given to the socio-cultural context and the religious and political debates which contributed in shaping Clough's artistic and ideological vision, particularly through the influential figures of Thomas Arnold, John Henry Newman and Ralph Waldo Emerson. That Clough remains to this day one of the most neglected nineteenth-century writers is all the more remarkable given the importance of his intellectual contribution to his times and his radical questioning of religious faith, traditional values and poetic norms.

This book explores the extent to which four sensation novelists responded to the Victorian theorizing of professionalism. A crucial period of redefinition of the professional ideal, the third quarter of the nineteenth century also witnessed the rise and the decline of the sensation novel, a scandalous and electrifying form that challenged aesthetic and socio-cultural standards. Owing to their controversial position in the literary marketplace, novelists like Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Charles Reade and Ellen Wood developed a keen interest in professional issues, which occupy centre stage in their 1850s-70s narratives. By drawing on a variety of sociological, cultural and philosophical theories, Costantini skilfully assesses the ideological implications of the genre's fictionalization of professionalism. She shows how sensation novelists provocatively represented the challenges faced by both elite and rising professionals, who are used as narrative vehicles for thorny discourses on authorship, ethicality, aestheticism and sociocultural identity.

The volume investigates Mario Praz's work from intercultural and interdisciplinary approaches. It considers Praz's writings on comparative literature, design, history of art and culture, collecting, intermedial studies, translation, journalism, travelling and autobiography. It explores his enthusiasm for the eccentric, the erotic and the macabre.