Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture

by Lutz, Deborah
ISBN: 9781107434394
Availability:
  • Online Only
$47.00

Available Offers


Pickup at {0} Out of stock at {0} Check other stores
FREE -
Ship to Me
$3.99 -

Overview

Nineteenth-century Britons treasured objects of daily life that had once belonged to their dead. The love of these keepsakes, which included hair, teeth, and other remains, speaks of an intimacy with the body and death, a way of understanding absence through its materials, which is less widely felt today. Deborah Lutz analyzes relic culture as an affirmation that objects held memories and told stories. These practices show a belief in keeping death vitally intertwined with life - not as memento mori but rather as respecting the singularity of unique beings. In a consumer culture in full swing by the 1850s, keepsakes of loved ones stood out as non-reproducible, authentic things whose value was purely personal. Through close reading of the works of Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, and others, this study illuminates the treasuring of objects that had belonged to or touched the dead.
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Author: Lutz, Deborah
  • ISBN: 9781107434394
  • Condition: New
  • Dimensions: 9.02 x 0.55
  • Number Of Pages: 261
  • Publication Year: 2017
Language: English