This Pivot examines a body of contemporary neo-Victorian novels whose uneasy relationship with the past can be theorised in terms of aggressive eating, including cannibalism. Not only is the imagery of eating repeatedly used by critics to comprehend neo-Victorian literature, the theme of cannibalism itself also appears overtly or implicitly in a number of the novels and their Victorian prototypes, thereby mirroring the cannibalistic relationship between the contemporary and the Victorian. Tammy Lai-Ming Ho argues that aggressive eating or cannibalism can be seen as a pathological and defining characteristic of neo-Victorian fiction, demonstrating how cannibalism provides a framework for understanding the genre's origin, its conflicted, ambivalent and violent relationship with its Victorian predecessors and the grotesque and gothic effects that it generates in its fiction.

Examines themes of cannibalism in Victorian and neo-Victorian criticism and literature Explores definitive aspects of neo-Victorian fiction including grotesque and gothic influences Provides a framework for understanding the origins of neo-Victorian fiction

Autorentext
Tammy Lai-Ming Ho is Associate Professor of English, Hong Kong Baptist University. She is the founding co-editor of the Hong Kong-based international publication, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and an editor of Hong Kong Studies, the first peer-reviewed journal devoted to Hong Kong.

Inhalt

Chapter One: Introduction: Neo-Victorian Cannibalism.- Chapter Two: Contesting (Post-)colonialism: Jane Eyre , Wide Sargasso Sea and Three Neo-Victorian Rejoinders.- Chapter Three: Dickens the Cannibal Cannibalised.- Chapter Four: Stoker and Neo- Dracula s.- Chapter Five: Coda: Victorian Memes.