Reviews for Repossessing the Romantic Past

The average rating for Repossessing the Romantic Past based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-11-22 00:00:00 Joshua Petersen Martha Stoddard Holmes's study Fictions of Affliction (2004) is a must-have in upper-level literature or history courses studying disabilities in the Victorian Era. Holmes analyzes emotionally extreme depictions of common disabilities in Victorian fiction, examines gender divisions among these depictions, then follows melodramatic disabled types into memoir and nonfiction. Holmes's central argument in Fictions of Affliction asserts that "Victorian discourses of disability, and the texts that convey them, are overwhelmingly 'melodramatic,'" evolving from a historical link between stage melodrama and disability into a link between emotional excess and physical disability (4). Moreover, Holmes claims that "[t]he results of this long-term connection were to formalize and institutionalize disability's connection to a particular set of emotional codes and to permanently associate the experience of disability with an expectation of melodrama," even across daily living (4). In this study, Holmes challenges the association between disability and emotional excess, an association she claims still exists today. The organization of Fictions of Affliction is natural and easy to follow, taking the path outlined in the thesis. The first and shortest chapter starts with a summary of the initial link between Victorian stage melodrama and disability and moves into an analysis of its subsequent expansion into nonliterary genres like educational, medical, and charity discourses. Holmes notes that emotional, poetic diction pervades even professional discourses in this period (26), supporting her argument that the literary treatment of disability affected people's day-to-day perceptions of disability. In the second chapter, Holmes smoothly adjusts her focus to women in Victorian melodramatic fiction. She looks especially at Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), Charles Dickens's The Cricket on the Hearth (1846), Dinah Mulock Craik's Olive (1850), Charlotte Mary Yonge's The Clever Woman of the Family (1865), and Dickens's Our Mutual Friend (1864-65). The disabled female character often stands in stark contrast to the traditional Victorian female character, who end up married mothers, as the sexuality and motherliness of the disabled female character is met with discomfort in the Victorian audience. Holmes points towards medical disability discourse as the cause, namely the eugenics movement and its more extreme desire to sterilize the disabled (68). Chapter Three shifts focus to the fiction of Wilkie Collins, whose disabled heroines defy the typical roles ascribed to them by exhibiting sexual feelings and having biological children, which irritated critics. Holmes admits from the start that her interest lies especially in works that act as exceptions to the rules, and her passion for Collins's work shines through the page. In the fourth chapter, Holmes slides from female characters into male characters, examining Dickens's conflicting representations of disabled boys as pitiable victims and disabled men as leering beggars. She then situates Dickens's work in the larger nonliterary sphere, pointing towards Victorian charity organizations' perceptions on the disabled as parallel to Dickens's character types. Chapter Five draws a neat conclusion to the research of the book, solidifying the link between literature and perception by examining nonfiction and autobiographies of Victorian people with disabilities. The melodramatic disabled character exists even throughout Henry Mayhew's interviews with disabled poor people (London Labour and the London Poor) and autobiographies and biographies about Harriet Martineau, John Kitto, Henry Fawcett, and Elizabeth Gilbert. In short, Holmes argues that not only did the melodramatic perspective of the Victorian period affect nonliterary discourses, but it affected even the way people with disabilities viewed themselves. Holmes has a clear formula for each chapter, as well. First, she introduces her theory and supports it with literary evidence, then she locates it within the Victorian period, pulling from nonliterary sources to show what catalyzed those literary themes and to show how those literary themes affected the world around them. This organization makes each chapter even easier to follow. Holmes includes heavy amounts of specialized research, but the book is easily accessible for undergraduate students and even those who know little about the Victorian era. While all of Holmes's chapters are remarkable in their own right, Chapter Two, or "Marital Melodramas: Disabled Women and Victorian Marriage Plots" is perhaps the best example of her ability to situate Victorian literature within its larger historical and disability contexts. Holmes argues that disabled female characters in this period went against the typical female role of mother and wife, constrained to a different role of lonely independence in plots that end with marriage (or several marriages). To support this argument and connect it to the time period, the book refers to eugenics, the view of all fallen women as disabled and diseased, and the theory of impressions, which asserted that pregnant woman who saw and were shocked by a disabled individual could pass that disability on to their child. The opposition to women with disabilities marrying, then, was not limited to fiction but stretched into discomfort with such women marrying in reality. The expectation became that women with disabilities were permitted a small relief from a culture that heavily encouraged women to marry, but they were then discouraged from marriage and motherhood altogether. Fictions of Affliction is clear about its limitations from the start. Holmes says she does not explore "freaks" of the Victorian period because of the "wealth of fine scholarship in that area" (14), opting to examine more common physical disabilities instead. She includes deafness and blindness as disabilities, noting that though that might be contested today, it would have been accepted in the Victorian era. She draws a line between physical and mental disabilities, though, in spite of the commonality of such associations in the nineteenth century. This boundary raises the question of how mental disabilities were treated in and outside of Victorian literature. While most of her primary sources come from middle or upper-class persons, Holmes makes a conscious effort to examine the perspective of people with disabilities in the lower class, even if only as through interviews and anecdotes of middle and upper class authors. She also examines Victorian disabilities from gender and age angles and doesn't shy away from the exceptions like Wilkie Collins's characters. As previously mentioned, Holmes does not limit herself to fiction, either, taking nonfiction and nonliterary sources into account. Sometimes she even includes images of the characters in discussion. Fictions of Affliction effectively argues for its contemporary importance in the conclusion; though, at that point, if you believe the conversation unimportant you've already likely set the book down. The topic of disabilities should be relevant to everyone, Holmes asserts, because "we will all experience impairment some day, given the fact of life's unpredictability or simply the fact of having lived a long life" (192). Moreover, Holmes points out that the melodramatic representation of people with disabilities continues into today, referencing two recent newspaper articles: one tear-jerker in which a veteran who lost a hand in battle returned to recover and one dark story about "a man with cerebral palsy" who was accused of soliciting sex from boys at local parks (a story where, as Holmes points out, the suspect's disability plays no real role but still gets a place in the headline) (194). The two extremes draw on disabled Victorian types of the victim and the villain. Holmes concludes her book by directing readers where to go next: "This book does not posit a new right way to feel about disabilities…It does not ask that we stop enjoying melodrama, as I reminded myself while I wept happily through at least five showings of Terms of Endearment…It insists, however, that we need to keep examining the question of how and why we learn how to feel about disability" (194-5). Holmes is an author conscious of the times she lives in and focused on furthering her cause. Fictions of Affliction is not without its faults; it has parts that are a patchwork of block quotes, with almost as much quotations as the author's own words. This is acceptable to an extent, as the author comes from a literary background where quoting is much more common than in a historical background. Even for a literary analysis, though, Holmes's quoting seems excessive, particularly towards the end, which is where I believe she begins to tire out. If I spread out the pages of the last chapter in a neat square, I might be able to play checkers on them, jumping from block quote to block quote. This problem did not affect my understanding of Holmes, but it did grow tedious after a while. I think this book is even sweeter when paired with Marlene Tromp's Victorian Freaks for a rounder understanding of disabilities in the Victorian era.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-02-12 00:00:00 Gabriel Rieger OK, i just read one essay, written by someone i know, out of curiosity for their academic past. Having read NO Joyce and very little Beckett, most of it made little sense to me. That is all.