Bodies and Books : Reading and the Fantasy of Communion in Nineteenth-Century America.
Title:
Bodies and Books : Reading and the Fantasy of Communion in Nineteenth-Century America.
Author:
Silverman, Gillian.
ISBN:
9780812206180
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (241 pages)
Contents:
Cover -- Contents -- Preface: Reading and the Search for Oneness -- Introduction: The Fantasy of Communion -- Chapter 1 Railroad Reading, Wayward Reading -- Chapter 2 Books and the Dead -- Chapter 3 Textual Sentimentalism: Incest and the Author-Reader Bond in Melville's Pierre -- Chapter 4 Outside the Circle: Embodied Communion in Frederick Douglass's 1845 Narrative -- Chapter 5 "The Polishing Attrition": Reading, Writing, and Renunciation in the Work of Susan Warner -- Epilogue: No End in Sight -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Z -- Acknowledgments.
Abstract:
This book argues that the practice of reading in nineteenth-century America was rooted in fantasies of communion. In handling a book, the reader imagined touching and being touched by the people affiliated with that book's narrative world. This could lead to a therapeutic sense of oneness with an author, a reader, or the material book itself.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Subject Term:
Genre:
Electronic Access:
Click to View