Fairies in 19C Art and Literature: 33 (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Series Number 33)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: New Ed, 8/21/2008
EAN 9780521025508, ISBN10: 0521025508
Paperback, 256 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Although fairies are now banished to the realm of childhood, these diminutive figures were central to the work of many Victorian painters, novelists, poets and even scientists. It would be no exaggeration to say that the Victorians were obsessed with fairies: yet this obsession has hitherto received little scholarly attention. Nicola Bown reminds us of the importance of fairies in Victorian culture. In the figure of the fairy, the Victorians crystallized contemporary anxieties about the effects of industrialization, the remoteness of the past, the value of culture and the way in which science threatened to undermine religion and spirituality. Above all, the fairy symbolized disenchantment with the irresistible forces of progress and modernity. As these forces stripped the world of its wonder, the Victorians consoled themselves by dreaming of a place and a people suffused with the enchantment that was disappearing from their own lives.
List of illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
small enchantments
1. Fancies of fairies and spirits and nonsense
2. Queen Mab among the steam engines
3. A few fragments of fairyology, shewing its connection with natural history
4. A broken heart and a pocket full of ashes
Notes
Bibliography
Index.
'Nicola Bown's compelling study brilliantly challenges preconceptions about fairies and fairyland; it will transform all subsequent thinking on the topic. Her book is packed with bold, fresh readings of poems, pictures, natural history and philosophy, with examples ranging from Keats' charm'd magic casements, to the famous case of the Cottingley fairy photographs.' Marina Warner