‘A Deformed Person is a Lord’: Deformity and the Male Aristocratic Body in Nineteenth-Century Popular Fiction. / Bullen, Sophie.
2019. Paper presented at The BodyResearch output: Contribution to conference › Paper
‘A Deformed Person is a Lord’: Deformity and the Male Aristocratic Body in Nineteenth-Century Popular Fiction. / Bullen, Sophie.
2019. Paper presented at The BodyResearch output: Contribution to conference › Paper
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TY - CONF
T1 - ‘A Deformed Person is a Lord’: Deformity and the Male Aristocratic Body in Nineteenth-Century Popular Fiction
AU - Bullen, Sophie
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - This paper will explore how and why the deformed male aristocrat became a recognizable figure in the era, making its way into several hugely popular (and today neglected) nineteenth-century novels. From the morbid Earl of St Germains (in Anne Marsh’s bestselling 1834 novella “The Deformed”) to the “smallest, saddest specimen of infantile deformity”, the Earl of Cairnforth (in Dinah Craik’s 1866 A Noble Life); from the clubfooted Sir Patrick Lundie (in Collins’ 1870 Man and Wife) to the heroic hunchback Lord Lashmar (of Braddon’s 1886 One Thing Needful), and the crippled, oversexed aesthete Sir Richard Calmady (in Lucas Malet’s 1901 eponymous novel), literary depictions of noble deformity, I argue, both enhance our understanding of Victorian notions of degeneration, heredity, masculinity and creativity, and challenge modern-day views about the role of deformed bodies in nineteenth-century literature and culture.
AB - This paper will explore how and why the deformed male aristocrat became a recognizable figure in the era, making its way into several hugely popular (and today neglected) nineteenth-century novels. From the morbid Earl of St Germains (in Anne Marsh’s bestselling 1834 novella “The Deformed”) to the “smallest, saddest specimen of infantile deformity”, the Earl of Cairnforth (in Dinah Craik’s 1866 A Noble Life); from the clubfooted Sir Patrick Lundie (in Collins’ 1870 Man and Wife) to the heroic hunchback Lord Lashmar (of Braddon’s 1886 One Thing Needful), and the crippled, oversexed aesthete Sir Richard Calmady (in Lucas Malet’s 1901 eponymous novel), literary depictions of noble deformity, I argue, both enhance our understanding of Victorian notions of degeneration, heredity, masculinity and creativity, and challenge modern-day views about the role of deformed bodies in nineteenth-century literature and culture.
M3 - Paper
T2 - The Body<br/>and the Page<br/>in Victorian Culture<br/>
Y2 - 26 July 2018 through 28 July 2018
ER -