Often, scholars of sensation fiction (as well as sensation fiction’s contemporary Victorian critics) argue that the genre was primarily deemed ‘sensational’ for its focus upon carefully constructed, formulaic plots of mystery, crime, and violence. Patrick Brantlinger, who wrote the oft-quoted essay “What is ‘Sensational’ About the ‘Sensation Novel’?,” maintains the traditional critical view that the […]
My previous blog post discussed the significance of literary places and the uses of narrative setting to establish character and suspense in Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel Gone Girl. As I originally quoted, Franco Moretti has asserted that literary maps enable literary scholars to ascertain “’emerging’ qualities, which were not visible at the lower level,” the lower […]
In his book titled Graphs, Maps, and Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History, Franco Moretti discusses the importance of narrative spaces, and in particular, he stresses that our understanding of characters’ relationships to their environment can alter the way that we think about a text. In creating literary maps, we can “find […] occurrences […]
Following its release, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl established itself as a literary and cultural phenomenon. The 2012 novel revolves around the crumbling marriage of Nick and Amy and the dark secrets of their marital life, domestic home, and individual identities that are exposed when Amy goes missing. It centers upon the mystery and investigation of […]
As argued in my previous blog post, Lady Audley’s Secret (or the sensation genre in general) relies not only upon explicitly “sensational” plot devices and narrative intrigue to entice its contemporary Victorian reader. In fact, Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s development and characterization of Lady Audley, subjected to the desertion of her first husband and the ills of […]
What really makes sensation fiction “sensational”? According to Patrick Brantlinger, who poses the same question in his essay titled “What is ‘Sensational’ About the ‘Sensation Novel’?,” the sensation novel comprises “violent and thrilling action, astonishing circumstances, stereotypic heroes, heroines, and villains” and contemporary interest in “bigamy, adultery, and the problem of divorce law” found in […]
In her introduction to the Broadview Press edition of Lady Audley’s Secret, Natalie Houston analyzes the influence of the domestic novel and its tropes on the development and popularity of the subsequent sensation fiction genre. According to Houston, sensation novels “combined elements from the domestic novel, which focused on courtship and social success, with stories […]
My prior post considered the duality of the home and of women in Victorian sensation fiction, describing my search for occurrences of the words “house” and “woman” in Lady Audley’s Secret with the help of Voyant and AntConc, two digital concordance tools. Both of my searches emphasized the tensions occurring between societal expectations of the domestic […]
Are traditional and old forms of media “dead”? In our rapidly evolving digital world, how do the humanities and traditional literary analysis adapt? What is the intersection between the study of literature and the use of digital tools? How can new digital tools aid our practices of literary analysis? Though the rise of digital technology […]
