Catholic Sensationalism in Villette

A new scholar Brontë-related book recently published:

Catholic Sensationalism and Victorian Literature
Maureen Moran
ISBN: 1846310709
Hardback
Liverpool University Press

"Catholic Sensationalism and Victorian Literature" offers a highly original examination of Victorian sensationalism through the exploration of popular literary representations of Roman Catholicism, that exotic, corrupt religious other which is inscribed as the implacable anti-English enemy. The book demonstrates how new understandings of cultural tensions of the period are gained through the association of Roman Catholicism with secular fears of crime, sex and violence, rather than with theological 'excesses' and doctrinal 'superstitions.'

Charlotte Brontë's Villette is one of the subjects of Chapter 2:

2

Nuns and priests : sensations of the cloister : Charlotte Bronte's Villette and the monologues of Robert Browning

The subject of the book reminds us to another one published a couple of years ago: Nineteenth-Century Anti-Catholic Discourses. The Case of Charlotte Brontë by Diana Peschier.

Categories: Books, Scholar, Villette