This book argues that, in Victorian literature, transgressive desires that cannot be openly acknowledged are often buried and encrypted in the marble bodies of statues.
This book argues that, in Victorian literature, transgressive desires that cannot be openly acknowledged are often buried and encrypted in the marble bodies of statues.
Patricia Pulham combines psychoanalytic theory with socio-historical criticism in her study of Vernon Lee's fantastic tales. Using D.W. Winnicott's 'transitional object' theory, Pulham argues that the past in Lee's tales signifies not only an historical but a psychic past. Thus the 'ghosts' that haunt Lee's supernatural fiction held complex meanings for her that were fundamental to her intellectual development and allowed her to explore altern...
This, the first collection of essays on the aesthete and intellectual Vernon Lee, offers a wide range of critical writings by scholars. Key works are examined including Euphorion, Hauntings: Fantastic Stories and Music and Its Lovers . New light is shed on Lee's relationships with contemporaries such as Lee-Hamilton, Pater and Wilde.