Referred to long ago as a "disease" of Swiss soldiers and
Highland regiments far from home, nostalgia became known in the
1920s as more of a fleeting rather than debilitating condition. Yet
what caused this shift in our collective understanding of the term?
In "Nostalgia in Transition, 1780-1917, " Linda M. Austin traces
the development of nostalgia from a memory disorder in the
eighteenth century to its modern formulation as a pleasant
recreational distraction. Offering a paradigm for and analysis of
nostalgic memory as it operates in various attempts to reenact the
past, Austin explains both the early and the modern understanding
of this phenomenon.
Beginning with an account of nostalgia's transformation from an
acute form of melancholia and homesickness into elegiac expression
and idyllic representation, Austin goes on to examine an array of
texts, from poetic meditations on nostalgia in the first half of
the nineteenth century to the popular adult souvenirs of childhood
in the second half. She shows how, in novels by Hardy; in elegies
and lyrics by Arnold, Tennyson, and Emily Bronte; in illustrations
by Kate Greenaway and Helen Allingham; and in late Victorian
cultural histories of the cottage, nostalgia acts as a collective,
rather than an individual reenactment of an invented, rather than a
remembered, past or place.
For students and scholars interested in the Victorian era, as
well as in Romanticism and modernism, "Nostalgia in Transition"
provides a well-rounded perspective on how and why our
understanding of nostalgia has changed over time.
General
Imprint: |
University of Virginia Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
February 2007 |
First published: |
February 2007 |
Authors: |
Linda M. Austin
|
Dimensions: |
239 x 164 x 29mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
256 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8139-2598-1 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-8139-2598-3 |
Barcode: |
9780813925981 |
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