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Book
Author Dames, Nicholas, 1970-

Title The physiology of the novel : reading, neural science, and the form of Victorian fiction / Nicholas Dames
Published Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'PONDS  823.8 D157/P  AVAILABLE
Description vii, 277 pages : illustrations, music ; 25 cm
Contents Introduction: Toward a History of Victorian Novel Theory -- I. Theories of Reading: A Critical Prehistory -- 1. Mass Reading and Physiological Novel Theory -- II. Practices of Reading: Four Cases -- 2. Distraction's Negative Liberty: Thackeray and Attention (Intermittent Form) -- 3. Melodies for the Forgetful: Eliot, Wagner, and Duration (Elongated Form) -- 4. Just Noticeable Differences: Meredith and Fragmentation (Discontinuous Form) -- 5. The Eye as Motor: Gissing and Speed-Reading (Accelerated Form) -- Coda: I. A. Richards and the End of Physiological Novel Theory
Summary "Rich in unexpected intersections, from the British response to Wagnerian opera to the birth of speed-reading in the late nineteenth century, The Physiology of the Novel challenges our assumptions about what novel-reading once did, and still does, to the individual reader, and provides new answers to the question of how novels influenced a culture's way of reading, responding, and feeling."--BOOK JACKET
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [256]-272) and index
Subject English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc.
English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism.
Books and reading -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.
Reader-response criticism -- Great Britain.
Literature and society -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.
LC no. 2007015702
ISBN 9780199208968 alkaline paper
0199208964 alkaline paper