Reading for Health: Medical Narratives and the Nineteenth-Century Novel (Series in Victorian Studies)

Synopsis

In Reading For Health, Erika Wright Argues That The Emphasis In Victorian Studies On Disease As The Primary Source Of Narrative Conflict Has Obscured The Complex Reading Practices That Emerge Around The Concept Of Health. By Shifting Attention To The Ways That Prevention Of Illness And The Preservation Of Well-being Operate In Fiction, Wright Offers A New Approach To Reading Character And Voice, Order And Temporality, Setting And Metaphor. As Wright Reveals, While Canonical Works By Austen, Bront, Dickens, Martineau, And Gaskell Register The Pervasiveness Of A Conventional Therapeutic Form Of Action And Mode Of Reading, They Demonstrate As Well A Powerful Investment In The Achievement And Maintenance Of Health, Both In Personal And Domestic-conduct And In The Social Interaction Of The Individual Within The Community.