Ghost-Seers, Detectives, and Spiritualists: Theories of Vision in Victorian Literature and Science

by Srdjan Smajić

• ISBN13: 9780521191883
• ISBN10: 0521191882
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-06-14
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This is an original study of the narrative techniques that developed for two very popular forms of fiction in the nineteenth century - ghost stories and detective stories - and the surprising similarities between them in the context of contemporary theories of vision and sight. Srdjan Smajić argues that to understand how writers represented ghost-seers and detectives, the views of contemporary scientists, philosophers, and spiritualists with which these writers engage have to be taken into account: these views raise questions such as whether seeing really is believing, how much of what we 'see' is actually only inferred, and whether there may be other (intuitive or spiritual) ways of seeing that enable us to perceive objects and beings inaccessible to the bodily senses. This book will make a real contribution to the understanding of Victorian science in culture, and of the ways in which literature draws on all kinds of knowledge.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
List of abbreviations	p. x
Introduction	p. 1
Outer Vision, Inner Vision: Ghost-Seeing and Ghost Stories	p. 9
Contextualizing the ghost story	p. 11
The rise of optical apparitions	p. 20
Inner vision and spiritual optics	p. 34
"Betwixt ancient faith and modern incredulity"	p. 45
Seeing is Reading: Vision, Language, and Detective Fiction	p. 65
Visual learning: sight and Victorian epistemology	p. 67
Scopophilia and scopophobia: Poe's readerly flâneur	p. 94
Stains, smears, and visual language in The Moonstone	p. 108
Semiotics v. encyclopedism: the case of Sherlock Holmes	p. 119
Into the Invisible: Science, Spiritualism, and Occult Detection	p. 129
Detective fiction's uncanny	p. 131
Light, ether, and the invisible world	p. 137
Inner vision and occult detection: Le Fanu's Martin Hesselius	p. 150
Other dimensions, other worlds	p. 157
Psychic sleuths and soul doctors	p. 181
Coda	p. 200
Notes	p. 204
Bibliography	p. 238
Index	p. 256
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