Borderlines of Madness in 19th-Century Fiction
Please note the date of this course has changed to Saturday 10 June 2023.
Victorian novelists and poets had deep insights into the workings of the mind, and many psychiatrists of the time cited works of fiction in their case studies. Among the authors we will cover are Charlotte Brontë, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Gogol, Herman Melville, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. We will explore representations of extreme mental states in 19th-century fiction with its hotly contested diagnoses. Among the psychological phenomena we will examine are "hysteria", paranoia, alcoholism, "moral insanity", learning difficulties, and post-natal depression.
We will also examine the phenomenon of the Victorian asylum. Each of the authors had a huge insight into such states, and constructed impressive and thoughtful works of art to explore these conditions and the impacts of sufferers and those around them.
Who is this course for?
For informal learners with curiosity and an appetite for reading and for sharing your insights. No previous skills or knowledge required. The texts on this course may be occasionally distressing.
What can I expect?
Teaching will be delivered as a lecture followed by interactive discussions. Participants are strongly encouraged to present their own works on any of the fictions or subjects that are of interest.
Practical information
Participants will need a pen and paper or a laptop for taking notes. Participants are encouraged to read the texts discussed. Extracts will be suggested if there is no time to complete an entire book. Most of the books can be purchased relatively inexpensively or borrowed from a public library.
The works we will study are:
- The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847)
- The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (1860)
- The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)
- Bartleby The Scrivener by Herman Melville (1853)
- The Diary of A Madman by Nikolai Gogol (1834)
- Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins (1934)
Need to Know
You will learn
- To define key diagnoses made by 19th-century psychiatrists
- To identify the opposition that was expressed to each of these theories
- To explore approaches to mental illness shown by a number of giants of 19th-century fiction, and the narrative strategies they used to present their views
- To identify the stylistic innovation and shifts in literary genre that each of these works display.
Meet the Tutor
Sarah Wise
Sarah Wise teaches 19th-century social history and literature to undergraduates and adult learners and is visiting professor at the University of California’s London Study Center. Her debut, The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave Robbery in 1830s London, was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction. It was the inspiration for Sky’s The Frankenstein Chronicles.
Her follow-up, The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum, was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize, and was the basis for the BBC’s series The Victorian Slum. Her most recent book, Inconvenient People, was shortlisted for the 2014 Wellcome Prize.
She contributed a chapter to ‘Charles Booth’s Poverty Maps’ -- the best-selling illustrated book by Thames & Hudson/London School of Economics. Her TV work includes providing background material for BBC1’s ‘Secret History of Our Streets’, and BBC2’s ‘The Victorian Slum’, and she has twice been the history expert on ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ Most recently she appeared on Radio 4’s ‘In Our Time’, speaking about the work of Charles Booth.
Dates and Times
Borderlines of Madness in 19th-Century Fiction
, 8:11 - 14:11
