Representations of Hair in Victorian Literature and Culture - Hardcover

Ofek, Galia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 075466161X ISBN 13: 9780754661610

Publisher: Routledge, 2009

Synopsis

Galia Ofek's wide-ranging study elucidates the historical, artistic, literary, and theoretical meanings of the Victorians' preoccupation with hair. Victorian writers and artists, Ofek argues, had a well-developed awareness of fetishism as an overinvestment of value in a specific body part and were fully cognizant of hair's symbolic resonance and its value as an object of commerce. In particular, they were increasingly alert to the symbolic significance of hairstyling. Among the writers and artists Ofek considers are Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Margaret Oliphant, Charles Darwin, Anthony Trollope, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Eliza Lynn Linton, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Herbert Spencer, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and Aubrey Beardsley. By examining fiction, poetry, anthropological and scientific works, newspaper reviews and advertisements, correspondence, jewellery, paintings, and cartoons, Ofek shows how changing patterns of power relations between women and patriarchy are rendered anew when viewed through the lens of Victorian hair codes and imagery during the second half of the nineteenth century.

About this title

Review:

'Lucidly written and erudite, Galia Ofek's beautifully illustrated book is destined to be the definitive study of the Victorian obsession with hair.' Deborah Denenholz Morse, College of William & Mary, USA '...a carefully theorized reading of hair in terms of fetishism and transgression (including Victorian concepts of the fetish as well as a post-Freudian understanding) ...' Times Literary Supplement 'Scholars interested in Victorian literature and culture will definitely appreciate the originality of this work, and will be able to retrace the familiar paths of well-known authors and their works under an unusual, fascinating perspective.' Rivista di Studi Vittoriani '... should appeal to all interpreters of Gaskell's rich and subtle writing, to show how her use of detail feeds into a bold alignment of criticism of social, sexual and religious intolerance.' Gaskell Journal '... an impressive body of research. [...] I would hope that [Ofek's] work helps us understand our own amused, ironic, and slightly embarrassed fascination with the many Liliths, Medusas, and Rapunzels whose uncanny images appear and reappear in Victorian literature and culture...' Pre-Raphaelite Studies '[Ofek's] finely-spun text will prove valuable to many a Victorian scholar but also to every reader interested in the culture of the period. The book is well-written, well-documented and includes a long and useful bibliography. In its overall scope and its step-by-step commentaries on individual texts (for this is where Ofek is at her best), it is both a fine piece of scholarship and an enjoyable read.' Cahiers victoriens et edouardiens 'Galia Ofek's book delivers impressively more than its quiet, albeit studious, title promises. ... The scholarship of Representations of Hair in Victorian Literature and Culture is enhanced by tens of illustrations carefully chosen and reproduced... The book is a highly informative read for Victorianists, and, due to the breadth of its theoretical foundations, is certain to gain a much wider readership beyond this field.' Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society '... [a] wonderfully written and thoroughly documented book...' European Legacy 'In this elegant, informative and persuasively argued study, Galia Ofek has brilliantly opened up a neglected topic in ways which commend this book to anyone with an interest in Victorian literary and visual culture.' Hardy Society Journal 'Ofek examines the cultural production of gendered identities through the representation of women's hair in Victorian literature and culture - a topic that has received scattered attention from scholars but has not been the subject of a full-length study. ... Ofek draws upon a range of theoretical foundations for her study, including paradigms drawn from psychoanalysis, fetish theory, Mary Douglas's anthropology, and Roland Barthe's semiotics. The book provides some fascinating insights into the quirkier details of the Victorian obsession with hair.' Victorian Studies 'In her preface Galia Ofek states, "My book examines a multiplicity of hair images against several layers of literary, historical, intellectual and visual traditions." Her twelve page bibliography and thirty-two illustrations attest how thoroughly she has covered her chosen ground.' English Studies

About the Author:

Galia Ofek (B.A. Hebrew University; M. Phil, D. Phil Oxford University) teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she has held the Golda Meir and Lafer Postdoctoral Research Fellowships. She is currently working on a new book, The New Woman's Testament: Biblical Narratives, Allusions and Imagery in New Woman and Anti-Feminist Fiction and Journalism 1880-1915, supported by the British Academy, AHRC and ESRC.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 075466161X
• ISBN 13: 9780754661610
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 284