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In 1850, the legendary Koh-i-noor diamond, gem of Eastern
potentates, was transferred from the Punjab in India and, in an
elaborate ceremony, placed into Queen Victoria's outstretched
hands. This act inaugurated what author Adrienne Munich recognizes
in her engaging new book as the empire of diamonds. Diamonds were a
symbol of political power-only for the very rich and influential.
But, in a development that also reflected the British Empire's
prosperity, the idea of owning a diamond came to be marketed to the
middle class. In all kinds of writings, diamonds began to take on
an affordable romance. Considering many of the era's most iconic
voices-from Dickens and Tennyson to Kipling and Stevenson-as well
as grand entertainments such as The Moonstone, King Solomon's
Mines, and the tales of Sherlock Holmes, Munich explores diamonds
as fetishes that seem to contain a living spirit exerting powerful
effects, and shows how they scintillated the literary and cultural
imagination. Based on close textual attention and rare archival
material, and drawing on ideas from material culture, fashion
theory, economic criticism, and fetishism, Empire of Diamonds
interprets the various meanings of diamonds, revealing a trajectory
including Indian celebrity-named diamonds reserved for Asian
princes, such as the Great Mogul and the Hope Diamond, their
adoption by British royal and aristocratic families, and their
discovery in South Africa, the mining of which devastated the area
even as it opened the gem up to the middle classes. The story
Munich tells eventually finds its way to America, as power and
influence crosses the Atlantic, bringing diamonds to a wide
consumer culture.
An unconventional figure in an age that excluded women from
government, Victoria was accorded prominence unavailable to any
male monarch. Yet as Adrienne Munich argues in this fascinating
work, the originality of the solid, dour icon that was Victoria
lay, paradoxically, in her very ordinariness. The first book to
fully investigate the influence of this icon of British history,
Queen Victoria's Secrets demonstrates the firm grasp the queen held
on the cultural imagination of her country, exploring how Victoria
created and maintained her royal authority. Gracefully weaving
together feminist, anthropological, and postcolonial approaches,
Munich searches out the myriad, often contradictory incarnations of
the queen in the minds of her people. How did Victoria convincingly
maintain her power for forty years after Prince Albert's death,
never giving up her identity as a grieving widow? How did Victorian
society's reverential treatment of their queen conflate with the
monarch's plain, middle class public image? These are some of the
secrets Munich examines in her richly detailed work. In
demonstrating the subtle but powerful ways in which Victoria
performed significant cultural work, Queen Victoria's Secrets goes
against the grain of Victoria scholarship, which has tended to
overlook the queen's political and cultural centrality. This
stylish, accessible portrait will be of great interest to those who
are fascinated by the myth-making and secrets of the Victorian age.
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Fashion in Film (Paperback)
Adrienne Munich; Contributions by Drake Stutesman, Mary Ann Caws, Ula Lukszo, Giuliana Bruno, …
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R723
Discovery Miles 7 230
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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The vital synergy between dress and the cinema has been in place
since the advent of film. Broaching topics such as vampires, noir,
and Marie Antoinette looks, Fashion in Film uncovers the way in
which the alliance of these two powerhouse industries use myriad
cultural influences shaping narrative, national identity, and all
points in between. Contributor essays address international films
from early cinema to the present, drawing on the classic and the
innovative. This abundantly illustrated collection reveals that
fashion in conjunction with film must be understood in a different
way from fashion tout simple."
Amy Lowell (1874-1925), American poet and critic, was one of the
most influential and best-known writers of her era. Within a
thirteen-year period, she produced six volumes of poetry, two
volumes of criticism, a two-volume biography of John Keats, and
countless articles and reviews that appeared in many popular
periodicals. As a herald of the New Poetry, Lowell saw herself and
her kind of work as a part of a newly forged, diverse, American
people that registered its consciousness in different tonalities
but all in a native idiom. She helped build the road leading to the
later works of Allen Ginsberg, May Sarton, Sylvia Plath, and
beyond. Except for the few poems that invariably appear in American
literature anthologies, most of her writings are out of print. This
will be the first volume of her work to appear in decades, and the
depth, range, and surprising sensuality of her poems will be a
revelation.
The poetry is organized according to Lowell's characteristic forms,
from traditional to experimental. In each section the works appear
in chronological order. Section one contains sonnets and other
traditional verse forms. The next section covers her translations
and adaptations of Chinese and Japanese poetry, whereby she
beautifully renders the spirit of these works. Also included here
are several of Lowell's own Asian-influenced poems. Lowell's free,
or cadenced verse appears in the third part. The last section
provides samples of Lowell's polyphonic prose, an ambitious and
vigorous art form that employs all of the resources of poetry.
The release of "The Selected Poems of Amy Lowell "will be a major
event for readers who have not been able to find a representative
sampling of work from this vigorous, courageous poet who gave voice
to an erotic, thoroughly American sensibility.
Queen Victoria's central importance to the era defined by her reign is self-evident, and yet it has been surprisingly overlooked in the study of Victorian culture. This collection of essays by noted scholars in literature, cultural studies, art history, and women's studies goes beyond biography and official history to explore the diverse and sometimes conflicting meanings this complex and fascinating figure held for her subjects around the world and even for those outside her empire.
Queen Victoria's central importance to the era defined by her reign is self-evident, and yet it has been surprisingly overlooked in the study of Victorian culture. This collection of essays by noted scholars in literature, cultural studies, art history, and women's studies goes beyond biography and official history to explore the diverse and sometimes conflicting meanings this complex and fascinating figure held for her subjects around the world and even for those outside her empire.
This study explores the passion with which Victorian male writers
and artists gave meaning to the myth of Perseus and Andromeda and
its medieval analogue, the legend of St George and the dragon. It
demonstrates how men used the myth to exert their own gender on
Victorian culture.
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