The Representation of Bodily Pain in Late Nineteenth-Century English Culture by Lucy Bending

The Representation of Bodily Pain in Late Nineteenth-Century English Culture by Lucy Bending

This book presents a study of the ways in which concepts of pain were treated across a broad range of late Victorian writing, placing literary texts alongside sermons, medical textbooks and the campaigning leaflets, in order to suggest patterns of presentation and evasion to be perceived throughout the different texts assembled. Pain is not a shared, cross-cultural phenomenon and this book uses the examples of fire-walking, flogging, and tattooing to show that, despite the fact that pain is often invoked as a marker of shared human identity, understandings of pain are sharply affected by class, gender, race, and supposed degree of criminality. In arguing this case, Virginia Woolfs claim that there is no language for pain is taken seriously, but the importance of this book lies in its exploration of the ways in which the seemingly incommunicable experience of bodily suffering can be conveyed.

Bending is illuminating on the crisis of faith caused by the doctrine of eternal pain in hell* English Historical Review *
Rich in detail and broad in range ... full of interesting local detail. * Notes and Queries *

Lucy Bending is Lecturer in English, University of Wales, Aberyswyth

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780198187172
ISBN 10	0198187173
Title	The Representation of Bodily Pain in Late Nineteenth-Century English Culture
Author	Lucy Bending
Series	Oxford English Monographs
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	2000-08-31
Number of pages	320
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.