Publisher's Synopsis
This book is a series of astute critical reflections on our enduring fixation with all things Victorian. In this book, Cora Kaplan looks at the politics of "Victoriana" from the 1970s through to the present, as it surfaces in the oscillation between nostalgia and critique in fiction, film and biography, as well as in the violent critical swings in the reputation of Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre", a novel that still inspires pastiche and high art as well as tears and rage. "Victoriana", the book argues, has developed a modern history in which we can trace the shifting social and cultural concerns of the last few decades. And through its formal invention and constant interrogation of 'history' itself, in works such as John Fowles's "The French Lieutenant's Woman", A.S. Byatt's "Possession", David Lodge's "Nice Work", Peter Ackroyd's "Dickens", Jane Campion's "The Piano" and Colm Toibin's "The Master", "Victoriana" maps out a very particular postmodern temporality.
