The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Novel, Sintesi del corso di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Novel e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! 1 Brief Introduction to Victorian Period Victorian period starts with coronation of queen Victoria in 1837 and ends wih her death in 1901. So this chronological line marks the birth of that we now designate as the Victorian Novel. In order to start talking about victorian novel and to explain how this genre was so controversial, generating lots of intellectual discussions and critical debates, it's appropriate to begin with a quotation from Henry James (referring to three influential literary works of the time: The Newcomes, The Three Musketeers and War and Peace), asserting: “What do such large loose baggy monsters, with their queer elements of the accidental and the arbitrary, artistically mean?” What did he mean with “monstrous, baggy and loose”? This probably means that many deformities are proper of the victorian literary form. Anyway it's hard to explain what kind of monstruosity occur in it, but it's clear that it concerns something irregular, de-formed from an ideal shape or pattern. However the real “monstrous” of Victorian novel is not to be discovered in its thematic content (as we expect to find) rather in its undisciplined form: so there's no a unifying aesthetic form, a regular pattern to follow, but just multilayered forms which reflect so many critical aspects of the time. It's no coincidence that all deformations from decent human behaviour determined many victorian literary sub-genres: so it's much more appropriate to say that victorian novel is a wide literary genre which across many tensions of that era, therefore is about so many things, such as city squallor, repressed sexuality, horrible living conditions of workingclass, imperial adventure, odd women, angels in the house and so on. Anyway we have also to consider which was the historical background in which this kind of novel developed: the first thing to consider is related to industrilization which caused a remarkable increasing of British population, causing many people to leave rural areas in search of employment in the new centers of industrialization. At the same time, changed also the way of moving from a place to another, thanks to railways and other technological innovations which allowed to reduce the distance. However there were other important innovations for as concerned society: the working class began to gather for male suffrage and sindacalization, giving rise to Chartism around 1830s and 1840s; economical depression and middle-class fear that continental revolution might cross the channel, led to national debate about what Carlyle defined as “The Condition of England Question”. Furthermore victorian period was also signed by two important parliamentary Reform Bills, the first in 1832 and the second in 1867; while The Origin of Species in 1859 challenged the ground of religious faith and its authority. In 1851 The Great Exhibition celebrated the splendour of British Empire, consolidating the alliance between royal monarchy and the industrial middle-class which was empowering its political influence. So G.E gave the right example of how the world worked it out, it was the sign of radical transformations, the same which were explored in many victorian literary works. By the time of the Great Exhibition, Victorian Novel had already established its form, gaining an hegemonic hold on a larger reading public which began more intellectually curious, specially at the end of the century. Two important novels have to be considered as the paradigm of some crucial trasformations in fiction: Oliver Twist (1837-1839) and Nostromo (1904): both were published weekly as serial form, and despite this, they did not have so much in common: 1.Oliver Twist was published betweeen 1837-1839, Dickens felt the necessity to write about the horrible living conditions of the workhouse, so he meant his writing as a morally trasforming force: indeed he played an active role as journalist for 8 years, so he knew how to talk about the condition of working class, about criminal life in London; he consider the drammatic effects of the Poor Law which was introduced in 1834, so art was the right mean to awake counsciousness and to attack the predominant industrial class. 2.At the opposite, Conrad's novel Nostromo ( published in 1904) highly diverged from Dickens moral writing: Conrad's writing did not pursued moral aims, is totally lack of moral urgency; as Conrad expressed in the Nigger of Narcissus preface, his writing is rather about the loss of the self before the experience of the world: narrator voice is now painfully conscious of being unable to explain ( rationally) the experience to the reader, his task is not fulfilled at all ( such was in much realistic narrative). For that reason Nostromo was agreed with dismissal by the public, it lacked of the simple pleaure for adventure and exploration, typical of many adventure stories of the time. So there was a radical shift relating to subject matter and setting: in Dickens we are in the streets of London with its criminal life, while in Conrad we are in the colonies of the British empire; Dickens novels are inhabited by criminals or good-mannered gentlemen and ladies with no interest in national politics, while in Conrad there are South Americans and Europeans, both involved in race supremacy struggles and politic hegemony. (even if other national territories were subjects of matter in many previous novels, it was only at the end of the century that other nations became full subjects of representation). Another point of difference is represented by the sources which inspired both authors: Dickens narrative is highly influenced by the reading of much picarsque literature (18th century, such as Fielding's Tom Jones); furthermore Dickens evocation of criminal London derives in part from the fascination with the gothic, the vampiric, the ghostly: from this derives also the melodramatic and sentimental mood of his novels. For as concern Conrad, instead, his literary heritage is larger and more varied from that of Dickens, in part because of his own deep reading of french literature, and because of all that came after Oliver Twist such as the enlargement of the political subject matter and of course, the development of psychological realism (similar to that of George Eliot exploration of characters mind). Another different aspect is related to their attitude: while Dickens tries to inspire in the reader emotional release ( in laughter or in tears) with his one-dimensional character, in Conrad everything is put in discussion, even the reader position, whose is offered a fragmented and multilayered perspective: there's no any sort of moral or empathetic alliance with the reader, his position is constantly shattered; characters too are forced to put in discussion their belief, their subjectivity is forced to face the precariousness of life, as did Nostromo (who later discovers to be the son of an italian actress of Jewish origin,) when he changed his status of captain of the stevedores ( as dockworker) into that of the possessor of a stolen treasure. 2 THE AESTHETICS AND THE FORM OF VICTORIAN NOVEL The aesthetic, the form and the ideology of victorian novels are aesthetically typical of their historical time: for example Lord Jim (1900) and Wuthering Heights (1847), are two very different novels which belong to two very different historical times: they differ ideologically and aesthetically; the one is considered a typical example of modernist literature, while the other one is a sort of hybrid novel which combines domestic and gothic issues. Despite this relevant contrasts, they are considered as victorian novel because they frame some peculiar aspects which are included under the “victorian” label. So these two novels are connected through issues of form, subjectivity and ideology: they reflect the aesthetic and ideological trasformations occured in the era's fiction. The relation between self and society, the emphasis on individualism (of Romantic influence) pressured by capitalism ideologies and how the novel form was radically influenced by dominant ideologies of the time, so we explore how novel form begin to change according on some dominant ideologies of the time. for emancipating that large part of population which was excluded from wealth and political voice. However, after the second leaders convention in 1848, Chartism essentially dissolved, leaving neverthless a crucial mark, above all for the middle classes which had experienced its violence (so as a revolutionary political and moral force, able to shatter the ground of the priviledged class). So, it was during Chartism period until the half of the century, that novel tried to convey knowledge about the horrible living conditions of the emergent industrial working class. Issues which were already expressed by Calryle in his “Condition of England Question”; it's no a coincidence that the bestseller of that time was not a novel at all, but Edwin Chadwick's “Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population in England”. Subjects such as the poor, the criminal and the diseased who had a very peripheral life, now aroused the most interest during those years, whether in fiction or in non-fiction writing. So novel blurred its lines with social investigation writings or better no-fiction writing (such as report, inquiry, pamphlet, bluebooks, newspaper report), capturing reading public imagination and playing an important role as a supporter of knowledge. Furthermore, novel reflected the sharp contrast between workers and industrial class, a gap which many intellectuals of the time called as the question of “two nations” (as if England was divided in two nations, whose breaking is clearly undeniable). Beside this, it's clear that novel also played a crucial role as moralizer: its final aim was to attack, directly or indirectly, the ignorance, selfishness, arrogance and utilitarian beliefs of the ruling industrial class. Mainly there were from novelists two different and opposite attitudes: authors such as Mill, Carlyle, Ruskin, Morris and Pater explored industrial issue in relation to progress (and how progress affected social structure), while others such as Gaskell, Dickens, Disraeli, Kingsley and Trollope were more directly interested in concrete example of change (both in terms of decline and progress). First examples of industrial fiction derives from Gaskell's Mary Barton, Trollope's Micheal Armstrong, the Factory boy, Kingsley's Alton Locke. Both in Gaskell's Mary Barton and Kingsley's Alton Locke, the discrepancy between working class and middle-class is more enphasized and lies at their centre. Both novels participate in representing the real working class conditions, and both share characters who only through the knowledge they have gained about the social whole, can understand themeselves as individuals. In Gaskell's Mary Barton, she is particularly insistent on the necessity of the understanding of community, by opposing the conditions of working class and those of the mill owners (a rising industrial class, known as millocracy which struggle for supremacy against the ancient aristocracy), for the benefit of her readers. So, poverty, misery, squalor, grimy streets, crowded factories, are perfectly conveyed through detailed descriptions: what is the most striking, is that poor seem to be hidden from millowners' s view: they are only interested in taking “the shortest road through the middle of all the labouring districts to their places of business, without ever seeing that they were in the midst of the grimy misery that lurked to the right and the left”. In “Alton Locke”, the protagonist is a joung working class man who tried to have success by writing poetry. However he understood that his lyrical pieces (about obsolete and out-of-date topics) will never be read, so he decided to focus on detailed chronicles about the miserable conditions of working class men. In so doing, he entered the wages of poverty, meeting in a dirty London slum a starving family of 4 members ( an old woman and three young seamstresses; whose two are forced to sell their body.): this introduction in the squalor suffered by the most part of labourers, turned Alton into an effective writer, ready to give voice to the weakest ( describing their misery condition in the working houses that industrialism has built for them), but most importantly he became an essential mean of information for the whole community as individual. So, as we have seen, topics such as individualism and social questions, are treated as two sides of the same coin. Anyway, is only with Dickens' Hard Times, that industrial subject reached its pinnacle (most consider this novel as the main Dickens contribution to industrial fiction). From Pickwick (1837) to Our mutual Friend (1865), Dickens explores industrial issue focusing on the role played by school in order to form the future ruling class, the industrial class. So, schools are the most suitable places in which the future gentlemen are trained, and these gentlemen become the professionals of industrilization. Neverthless, not only gentlemen went to school: indeed there were the so called factory and Sunday school which provided religious as well as academic education for the future working-class men: so it's clear that Hard Times shows accurately the strict relation between factory life and the emerging educational system, in the fictional Coketown. The educational system must be grounded on “facts” according on Thomas Gradgrind: facts are the “one thing needful”, the only quality which distinguish men from animals; anything more is useless, unnecessary. So, knowledge is reduced to mere facts, there's no space for emotions and human feeling: all society is considered as a large factory whose human beings have lost the capacity of immagination. So, what Dickens expresses, is not just tabout he mere concern with industrialism inequalities, but also with its catastrophic effects of its practices. Another character who embodies the personification of industrial discourse is Josiah Bounderby a self-made man who denies human affiliations and establish his relationships on the basis of profit: the other are only “commodities” from whose gain profit. So we may conclude by asserting that: if industrialism is grounded on facts and human feelings are exempted from it, so it's clear that all possibilities of knowing are not contained in its rigid boundaries. Gradgrind and Bounderby personificate the same logic of industrial discourse, and they both represent the failure of knowledge, and so, of human progress. For as concern the last thirty years of 19th century, authors such as Gissing, Morris took another perspective, thinking that social change only occurs with a concrete political intervention from the ruling class and by reformulating political agendas: so progress was not only related to wealth and culture, but also to equality. In the last decades of the century there was an important topic shift in novels: novel is not more concerned only with representing the real living conditions of the poor and the logic of capitalism, but it is also concerned with issues relating to British Empire and its political strategies. Another product of industrial culture is the affirmation of the “new woman”. In the last decades of the century, women got more and more indipendent and more aware of their disparity condition than men, eager to free themeselves from patriarchal norms and conventions. And above all, they were ready to fight for their voting rights, university education, asserting a new perspective, the gendered one. (as Mina Parker in Bram Stoker's Dracula). New Woman Question so was at the centre of public discussions, as it was The Condition of England in the 1840s. 4 EXPLORING GENDER IN VICTORIAN NOVEL Constraints about heterosexual reproduction in order to restrict poverty, and so, overpopulation, became another central issue to cope with. Victorian novel was concerned with question about reproduction and sexuality, specially for as concerned those people who could belong to the respectable social classes: the main preoccupation was to bring under control heterosexual desire, one of the main source of misery and war (less population, less mouths to feed). This is the reason why the first solution to resolve the problem at its source, was found in the female body: gender and economics became strictly bound: from reproductive practices depend the fate of the nation, particularly those sexual rituals belonging to middle-class women. A careful selection of some victorian fiction show how gender issues and female sexuality were a matter of national economy. “The Descent of Men and Selection in relation to Sex” published in 1871, revealed a new definition of masculinity and human race supremacy: the theory about human supremacy over other species, now is abandoned to confirm another kind of supremacy, now related to middle-class over other social groups. Middle-class men are the more suitable for ruling society and so are the more appropriate competitors in struggle for food and above all, for women. According on Darwin, sexual competition is of two kinds: men struggle against other men in order to defeat other rivals and conquer women (who are passive), while the other is about men struggle with other men to charm women, but this time are women who choose the most agreeable and eligible partner. So in this second passage, women are empowered to exercise what Malthus as called “taste and refinement”, so women have to choose a man not only in terms of his masculinity (so his ability of survive against others), but also as a pleasent and charming partner. This last phase is very important, because there’s a sharp asymmetry between genders, but also because women are responsible in selecting their male partners. So, men competition is also an issue of political economy: as Marx stated, middle-class men are the most fit to rule and so the most appropriate to reproduce themselves, in contrast with other men who have only their labour (so darwinian theory of natural selection in relation to sex, but also in relation to social class supremacy). However, competition between masculinity and femininity are explored in victorian novel under controversial perspectives: gender lines are blurred and put in discussion by many authors, specially in Dickens's novel Dombey and Son and in Brontee's novel. In Dombey and Son, Dombey represents the typical successful capitalist who personificates political authority and social respectability, neverthless his masculine authority is put in discussion by the figure of his daughter, Florence, who seems to represent what Dombey himself lacks. Futhermore there's a sort of gender confusion, because Dombey's son seems to have inherited his mother's passivity (indeed she died in the opening pages of the novel), dying in his childhood, while Florence manages to survive and to arise more affection and respectability than Dombey does. Another Dombey's weak point, is about his failing relationship with his second wife Edith: Dombey fails to make her a showpiece of his successful struggle with other men: Dombey thinks he possesses her as an object, but she is an object of exchange with other men, entering into an adulterous relationship with a Dombey's subordinate. So Dickens's male protagonists are not men at all: first they are partially deprived of their authority (so they enact a loss of those qualities who would allow them to compete with other men for money, position and love), and then they are paradoxically rehabilitate by women in order to make them more “agreeable”. The same occured in other fiction, such as in Jane Eyre (Rochster is rehabilitated by Jane, who marries him after she became a rich heiress), or in Wuthering Heights (Cathy2 marries Hareton, after he has been well-educated and civilized by her, as in a sort of master-pupil relationship). As we have seen, we can affirm that Victorian novel seems to perform a sort of erosion of middle- class masculinity, a tension which is resolved only in a pre-industrial setting such as in Eliot's “Middlemarch” or in “Far from the Madding Crowd by Hardy”, where women could choose ( as Dorothea Brooke chooses Will Ladislaw, and Bathsheba Everdene chooses Gabriel Oak, socially inferior to her) and men could be chosen: but this form of masculinity is not more available within the modern urban world: both men combine the typical masculine vigor of the pre-industrial Englishman with the emotional sensibility of the feminine. However what victorian novel did, was the perpetual erosion of middle-class masculinity model: middle-class men established a kind of threaten for femininity security, as a part of that modern cultural logic, so feminine body needs to be redifined as well as new forms of middle-class masculinity. In Eighteenth century novel, such as in Jane Austen, heroines features were defined in relation of their lack of education, social acumen, emotional delicacy and refined taste, all features which represent the traditional model of femininity, necessary to choose the right partner of life. In Victorian England another type of femininity is established: heroines such as Catherine Earnshaw, Jane Eyre, Maggie Tulliver, Louisa Grandgrind are instead represented in struggle with their female nature, so with the traditional femininity pattern, they are always pushed by a desire capable of canceling out all signs of femininity: so while Eighteenth century novel invented describes the sacrifice of his own desires to satisfy the demands of his father: “My father was a farmer…he exhorted me to continue in the good old way, to follow his steps, and those of his father before him, and let my highest ambition be, to walk honestly through the world...and to transmit the paternal acres to my children...” Anyway prohibition and denial encourage to indulge in sexual desire, which is the only thrill in a world full of duty and governed by the cool capitalistic logic. So, at the end, desire cannot be displaced by other forces, it cannot be extinguished, it neverthless can be governed: so the novel is not concern with the total destructon of sexual desire, rather how to discipline it as a driving force. 2.If in Brontee's novel sexual desire takes place outside of the economical sphere, whose suppression is demanded for the benefit of a capitalist regime (firmly established by the middle of the 19th century), in Thackeray's novel “Vanity Fair” (1848), sexual desire is such a dazzling and blinding drive that it will be satisfied at any costs. So the main novel concern is not about how passion has to do with economic values, but rather how much it costs: the trouble with passion seems to have economical implications: those who suffered from blinding passion, are the most exposed to danger (and assumes the most embarassing positions). It is the case of the burning passion aroused by Becky in Jos Sedley, who is forced to drunk enough to mess with her; but is George Dobbin who has suffered more than anyone, the most devastating effects of passion, as the “fool of love”. Through the following passage, he sums up its snares, expressing his disenchantment: “...no, you are not worthy of the love which I have devoted to you. …I was a fool, with fond fancies too, ...I will bargain no more: I withdraw”. The frustration revealed by this passage isn't just about the failure of love, but it describes love as it was a kind of “bargain”, too much “expansive” to be endured: so the return it offers in not up to the efforts. So, as in the case of George, only after having recovered from his passion, he realizes that Amelia is not worth the price that he paid for her. However the devastating effect of desire is not confined only in the private and intimate sphere, but it spreads also in the social sphere of society. So another novel concern has to do with another kind of “passion”, the passion for gambling (gioco d'azzardo): characters are overwhelmed by their blinding greed as well as are dominated by desire in their private spheres. Likewise sexual desire, the love for money is powerful enough to prevent the irrational spendings: like the lover who fails to recognize a bad “bargain”, so the gambler is not able to contain his greedy, his desire of gaining at any costs. The result is the total destruction: it's too late when the loser (the greedy and wasteful gambler, or the drunken in love) realizes his unavoidable loss/ failure, which is expressed by his disinchantment or by dissipating his overheated passion. The calm after the storm, finally prevails. 3.Dull sense of duty is always alligned with the common sense of capitalism (or what it was called “the global triumph of capitalism”), so the “frenzy of ardour”, as it was defined by Anne Brontee, is always in the opposite direction of common sense. So far, we have seen how in the victorian novel sexual desire is defined according to its distance or closeness to capitalist system; at any rate, we realize that the specter of market society always haunts victorian novel. However, there are also novels which staged sexual desire as a necessary part of victorian society: novels such as Davide Copperfield or Jane Eyre (1847), are more exactly stories of “sexual education”: recalling the “bildungsroman” model: infatuations experienced by the hero/ heroine during the youth, prepare the ground for mature love. Jane Eyre, particularly, enact how homoerotic experience turn into heterosexuality. If homosexuality is a mere physical experience which makes a brief but crucial appearence, but once is consummated is bound to failure (or death) heterosexual bound is a kind of metaphysical experience which lead to marriage. This is the case of the relationship between Mr. Rochester and Jane, in which physical appearence is sublimated. Despite Jane was not struck by Rochester at their first meeting, anyway she declared that: “I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry and fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape, I should know that they neither nor could have symphathy with anything in me, and should have shunned them as one would fire, lightining or anything else that is bright but antipathetic”. So what takes place is a sort of sublimation which turn Rochester and his rough features into something adorable, something more than beautiful: “most true it is that beatuy is in the eyes of the gazer”. For his part, R. returns the abstracting tribute of this regard, saying that his passion is not addressed to those gazelle eyes, rather is reserved for the “something glad” he detects in the “glance” of the most ordinary English girls: “Although you are not pretty any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you”. Anyway, Jane fascination for sublimation, seems to have origin at schools: at that time, she was really attracted by two concrete objects of desire: Helen Burns and Maria Temple. Maria Temple was a central figure in Jane's life and education; she was the teacher of Lowood institute and the only person who cared about girls at school, protecting them from the cruelty of Mr. Brocklehurst. So, it's clear that Miss Temple gains Jane's loyalty, so she was important to Jane's development as someone who takes the trouble to care about the truth and someone who encourages Jane to increase her education. Furthermore, she plays also an allegorical role, may be representing Jane's place of refuge (indeed her surname is “temple”), and when she leaves Lowood, also Jane is ready to leave. Miss Temple physical qualities are initially described but as Jane enumerates her qualities, the lady, or at least the body, vanishes, giving way to an abstract tendency. Such translations of the body are the source of sexual desire: as Freud will suggest later, sexual impulses starts in the dismissal (or denial) of bodily needs: sex really starts from the head, it is a matter of mind. However, while the object of homosexual desire will survives as a metaphysical and abstract paradigm in Jane's sublimation process, for as concern Helen Burns, the homosexual act is “consummated” when they sleep together in a “deathbed”: “Miss Temple had found me laid in the little crib; my face against Helen Burns's shoulder, my arms round her neck. I was asleep, and Helen was dead”. This drive towards death is conveyed by a certain type of victorian pattern assured in and beyond Jane Eyre: a pattern through which all passions lead, one way or another, whether to death (as in the graveyard where H.B is buried) or to Church, where Jane and Rochester are finally married. 6 THE SENSATION IN VICTORIAN NOVEL Sensation novel established for a brief period of time, particularly in the years between 1860s and 1870s, and was defined as a “great fact” in the literature of the day. Many critics and intellectuals described this kind of literary fiction as a minor subgenre which represented the “disagreeable sign of its days”. The fierce attack started in the pages of the conservative “Quarterly Review” in 1863 by the Dean of St. Paul, who launched a critical and moral attack about this emerging literary phenomenona to which many writers and novelists approached. So the 1860 was officially the “sensation decade” of sensational writing as well as was the era of sensational advertisments, products, crime, journals and scandals. However, it wasn't enough, cause it was also the era in which melodrama with its exasperated emotions, “special effects”, flourished in victorian theatre. In short, this age was a decade of consolidation for the spectacle, an era inaugurated by the rench Revolution and consolidated by the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the International Exhibition of 1862. Private affairs became of public domain (and so were spectaclerized) through the press, particularly those cases in which emerged murderous or criminal women, who were the source of inspiration for many sensational novelists. It was also the period of laws about marriage and marriage customs regulation. But Sensation was also the label of a commercial product which tried to satisfy an eager and expanding reading public with its particular depraved tastes for suspect, murder and crime. So it was a mere product of industry for which there was just a brisk demand: the thrill, the danger were the most demanded elements from this public. From one side, many writers of the time, considered themeselves as sensational novelists, such as Collins, Braddon and Wood; while others rejected this label even though a lot of their writings took inspiration from sensational stuff ( authors such as La Fanu or Charles Reade were inspired by the melodrama or used many sensation techniques , but they essentially wrote for social and moral purpose; this was the same for Hardy who gave his contribution to the genre with his “Desparate Remedies”). Anyway there are three authors who can be considered as the main voices of the genre: Collins, Braddon and Wood were the main sensation authors of the time and what they wrote was usually defined also as “tales of modern life”( dealing with crime, bigamy, adultery, secrecy, deceit, and so). So heroes and, specially heroines of their plots always emerged for their crimes, adulterous affairs or more often because they were at the centre of intricate plots of horror and murder. Anyway sensational stuff, it's important to say, was mainly inspired by concrete events of the time (a various range of crimes, blackmail, attempted murder, scandals of various kind, persecution or seduction of young women, illegal carceration of women, and so on). Therefore, it's clear that we have to deal with an hybrid genre, a kind of chaotic literary form combining realism and melodrama effects, domestic and romantic matters, fascination with horror and crimes. In short, according on what Dickens wrote about Collins's “The Moonstone”, sensation novel is simply” wild yet domestic”. Mistery is the dominant ingredient (all characters are involved, in a way or another, in mystery) and its concealment is the principal purpose, so omniscient narrator role is put in discussion, prevailing a multi-framed perspective in which each voice gives its personal account in revealing the truth: without an helping narrator voice as a guide, the reader is left alone in discovering the truth, making only provisional supposistions and judgements about the facts narrated. The genre was meant as both the cause and symptom of moral degeneration and corruption of modernity; this genre is the factual evidence of moral disease which culminated in modern life, it's the sign of spiritual degeneracy of modern-urban-industrial culture against which W. Gave his account in the Preface of his Lyrical Ballads (1800). The same thought was shared similarly in 1860 by Henry Mansel, who saw this genre as “the morbid phenomenon of literature”, only aimed to satisfy the animal instincts of the reading public. So, ingredients of crime novel, domestic fiction, gothic tale met and mingled together in sensational fiction, but this time, as H. James asserted, the scenary in which the extraordinary events occured, was really different: the remote and distant lands typical of gothic romance, are now replaced by British scenary. So the setting this time is real familiar to all’English, it is a kind of domestic setting. Referring to James, sensation novels dealt with “those most mysterious mysteries, the mysteries which are at our own doors...”. Anyway, the most shocking and representative feature of this genre, dealt with the representation of a particular range of female characters, the real protagonists of sensational fiction. In particular, a vast range of feminine model was displayed, varying from the heroine to the villainess, from the angelic type to the femme fatale. However, women were principally represented as creature of passions, involved in adulterous affairs, bigamic relations; women potentially dangerous, trangressive, or totally driven mad for the man who leads them into desperation, were evidently the real main protagonists of sensationalism. Many critics of the time were disgusted by this trash literature, because not only it performed a kind of dangerous femininity, but also because it entertained those women (mothers, daughters, wifes of England) who found amusement and pleasure in these readings. Despite Todorov and Jameson both considered the genre as a social practice as well as a literary category that should be seen as a flexible and changing category, this thought was radically rejected by the nature of sensation novel. Indeed, another peculiar feature of sensational fiction was clearly society tries to suppress, while Laura represents the legitimate part, she's the legitimate daughter of a respectable gentleman and for this reason she has been raised to occupy a childlike, passive and dependent role: firstly as a daughter and then, as a wife. So, in other words, Anne represents the deviant side of femininity while Laura the conventional one. Anyway Laura's situation is not so much different from that of Anne's incarceration: she is also a prisoner as Anne in the asylum, so paradoxically even when she is rescued by Hartright, she still remains a kind of passive figure who needs protection and care. So, the heart of The Woman in White is built upon these contrasting elements, in particular on opposite pairings terms, such as: sanity/insanity, legitimacy/illegitimacy, masculinity/femininity, genteel femininity/ungenteel...but most of all, Collins explores deeply, through the figures of Laura and Anne, a kind of femininity, that of the “madwoman”, a socially deviant model who challenges or escapes social control. In other words, the contrasting pairs sanity/ insanity can be identify with masculinity and femininity: so madness, hysteria, exaggerated emotions, excess, irrationality, are defined in relation to femininity. Madness is a typical malady of women in 19th century. So while the boundaries between sanity/insanity are explored in relation to rational man and irrational woman, those concerning with masculinity/femininity are more blurred and put in discussion by the figure of Marian Halcombe. According on Hartright narrative, she seems to have some masculine features, but not only in her appearance, even in her attitude. So, through Hartright's eyes, Marian seems to not share those conventional features typical of victorian women: “her large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw”, her olive complexion, her” piercing, resolute brown eyes” all these elements signify one thing: masculinity. Furthermore, her “expression” is bright, frank, intelligent. To sum up, Collins explores gender boundaries, showing how their limits are blurred and confused (feminized men and masculinized women), and above all, how the label of madness is inscribed in the feminine body. 2.” The Moonstone” (1868), is considered as a paradigm of the sensational genre but also as the initiator of the “English Country House of Mystery” strand, a literary subgenre which emerged within the detective narration. Furthermore, this novel recollects other staple components of the genre, deriving from “Armadale” and from “No Name”. So, defined by Dickens as “wild yet domestic”, according on Lyn Pykett “The Moonstone” includes all the key-elements typcal of the sensation novel: 1.it makes use of dreams and confusing state of mind, 2.thrills and mystery are central in the plot, 3.family secrets lie at its centre, 4.use of atmospheric and gothic devices, such as the quicksand, 5.a mysterious and otrageous past overlaps with the present, 6.professional and no professionals male figures are involved in detection and above all, in domestic background, their roles are blurred and no clearly defined, 7.the plot is multi-layered, fragmented but, specially is kept in motion by a woman with a secret (Rachel Verinder):she knows who is the theft of the diamond, 8.another central role is played by another woman, Rosanna Spearman, the Verinder's family servant, whose past is really murky and shameful: she has been imprisoned for theft and she nourishes a deep passion for a man who is socially superior than her, 9.female passions and physical sensations are at the centre of narration, and they are described in minute details, 10.finally, colonial issues are indirectly explored: the removal of the precious gem from its original place in Seringapatam, during a battle ( in particular the diamond was plundered by Rachel's uncle who left it to her as an act of revenge against the family which had ostracized him) and its inheritance to Rachel as her birthday gift, signify also the transmission of an heavy burden from a generation to another. So it's important to analyse what kind of femininity is explored through the figures of Rachel and Rosanna, and why their emotions, secrets, and silence are so central in the plot. We have to start with Rachel Verinder, who is indirectly involved in the diamond theft: we know that the diamond disappears during her birthday, a scandal which arises “the detective fever”, shattering the domestic setting within the household. Furthermore, the mystery of the diamond is strictly related to the mystery aroused by Rachel's conduct: she seems to fulfill all those typical features of femaleness hysteria, the same which characterizes other sensational heroines (such as Magdalen Vanstone in “No Name”). So, the very miystery to resolve is Rachel's strange conduct which makes her “odd and wild”, different from that of other girls of her age and class. She is described as: self-will, indpendent, disregarding conventions, all those signs which embody the fears and anxieties aroused by the nature of modern femininity. Anyway her appearent subversive position, conceals a kind of feminine suppression and self-control which try to keep hidden her true emotions and feelings, in particular a burning passion for Franklin Blake, who is supposed to be the real responsible of the theft. (he was seen in the night by Rachel stealing the diamond, but he has been caught by a strong attack of sleepwalking). So Rachel feels guilty for loving a man who has committed such a terrible crime (even though he was unconscious), she lives a very interior drama which has to be silenced and kept hidden. However, Rachel's passion is the real sensational source, it represents for Collins a strategical device to explore inner femininity and to increase the sensational effect. As we have already said, feelings and secret passion are at the centre, constitute the “spectacle”: until know we have explored Rachel emotions and passions, now we have to consider also another agonising passion which constitute a substantial part of the narrative discourse within the Moonstone, that of Rosanna Spearmen. Unlike Rachel, Rosanna is a wretched and unfortunate woman with a guilty past, but also with a guilty passion: she loves the wrong man (the same who Rachel loves); in addition to this, her guilt is exasperated by her socially inferior status. As in Rachelas well as in Rosanna, passion is associated with secrecy and silence, in order to preserve the reputation of the man she loves; but this time she prefers to sacrifice herself, throwing in the quicksand. On the other hand, silence is the only powerful mean that she has at her disposal, the only mean of preserving respectability and of closing the social gap between her and Franklin. However the Moonstone is not only a novel about women passions and how they manage to suppress them, it is also focused on controling femininity in its typical space of domain: the home. Although women space is the home, home represents also the place of restrictions, the place in which female bodies are confined and controlled. So, this role is played in the novel by Sergeant Cuff, the family policeman, who is used to resolve various case of domestic scandals and crimes; according on him the house is the main source of criminality. So, Cuff's domestic practice and expertise as the family investogator, play an influential role in keeping the mysterious narrative process. Anyway, even this appearent dominating role is undermined and defeated by women's silence and the failure of individual women to conform to respectable stereotypes of femininity. So he is unable to understand the real nature of upper-class women. For as concerns male identities and role, they are explored too but this time their boundaries are more blurred and confused. Collins represents a kind of masculiniyt which has not been clearly established: Franklin Blake is the most suitable example. He's only the son a wealthy man who aspires to enter the heritage, but he has no aspirations, no professional training or vocation, “he wrote a little, he painted a little, he sang and composed a little” ...he is incomplete, in searching of a permanent role within society. So the search for the thief of the diamond is just a quest, as for an hero, to prove himself worthy, and above all, a quest for defining his identity. 8 THE DETECTION IN VICTORIAN NOVEL At the end of the 19th century, two main terms become the equivalent of Victorian fiction: sensation and detection. Indeed, almost every Victorian novel has at its core some crime to investigate, some mysterious identity that must be unmasked, some secret that must be discovered. So the literary detective figure begins to be the most representative one during Victorian era. Anyway, detective fiction has to be considered as a powerful expression of its historical period: a period more and more marked by the obsession of controlling suspect individuals, by reasserting an objective social authority. So, through detective fiction a new form of authority is established in order to suppress the criminal or the rebel, corresponding to the rise of the modern police force in England and of the new science of criminology. Although the pioneer of this genre was Edgar Allan Poe with his first modern detective story “Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), his english counterpart and the originator of the detective story in Britain, was certainly Charles Dickens with his Bleak House. Anyway detective fiction seems derived from another literary form which developed in the early decades of the 19th century: the Newgate novels or the rogue novels. At its centre there was the figure of a criminal as the main character, featured as a sympathetic victim of a repressive legal system: he was a romantic rebellious individual who struggled against the social forces, often admired even by the police. So it expressed the discontent about a repressive and corrupted legal system with its brutal forms of punishment. The celebration of the criminal figure corresponds with the rise of the Chartist Movement in 1830s as well as with the emerging discontent about The Reform Bill of 1832 (which denied the right to vote for working-class). So, alongside the industrial novels, Newgate novel too, became the most appropriate expression of the early 19th century British reform. Thus novels such as Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Pau Clifford, Charles Dickenss Oliver Twist, just to make some example, expressed this feeling of renewal. The term Newgate was inspired by the name of a prison which in the last decades of 18th century was a place of confinment for criminals before their execution. After its destruction, it was rebuilt in 1790s, this time as a place for the British Jacobins, who symphatized with French Revolution. So Newgate prison was a powerful combination with rebellious individuals and revolutionary politics at the same time. No wonder, if it was regarded as The English Bastille, so as a strong symbol of resistance to political oppression. Therefore, Newgate novels were romanticized versions of criminal life in England based on the chronicles of the Newgate Calendar which recollect all the criminal memoirs of notorious characters who have violeted the laws of England. The passage from Newgate novel of the early 1830s to detective novel is marked by Dickens Bleak House (1853) as the first english detective novel and the most constructed version of the form, expressing the rise of the modern professional police force in England. Detective novels are in combination with another literary genre represented by sensational novel where no professional figures were involved in investigation, such as Walter Hartright in The Woman in White (a drawing teacher who investigate the mystery around Anne Catherick), or Sergeant Cuff in The Moonstone, a keen observer used to resolve domestic conflicts. Despite all these characters show their unquestionable abilities of investigation, they however lack of that scientific knowledge expertise which is necessary to solve a crime and the mystery of identity. This is the reason why this process culminated in Sherlock Holmes stories which represented the full combination of scientific and legal expertise. First introduced by A.C. Doyle to the reading public in 1887, during the same period, several innovations were introduced in the field of crime investigation which consolidated juridical-medical collaborations, what S.H defined as “a new police science”. So many scientific disciplines were introduced at the end of the century: Cesare Lombroso contributed to the foundation of criminal anthropology: the criminal body was explored in detail to find explanation for criminal behaviour, while in England was published the first main contribution to forensic science, The Criminal, by Ellis. Furthermore, some innovations in forensic medicine and important discovering in criminological practice as well, derived directly from Sherlock Holmes adventures. The mug-shot, or better known as the portrait parlé was introduced in France by Bertillon: it consisted of a photograph of the criminal, printed on a card and accompanied by a set of information in order to identify the suspect with accurate certainty. So, Bertillon and anther pioneer in criminology, Locard, attributed many of their own innovations to their reading of Sherlock Holmes stories. Indeed Locard educated his colleagues referring to “A Study in Scarlett” and to “A Sign of the Four”. In “A Study in Scarlett”, one the first S. Holmes stories, Holmes uses the innovative method of the fingerprint to resolve his first case, even before it was adopted by any European police force and even prior of Sir Francis Galton's pioneering book on the matter, “Finger Prints” (1892). So, in the next case study, Holmes emphasizes the importance of using fingerprints, specially footmarks as a valid and certain instrument to incriminate the felon (the guilty party). So, Victorian detective and Victorian scientist became strictly related in Sherlock Holmes.