Articulating the Elephant Man: Joseph Merrick and His Interpreters (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
Language: English
Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: The Private Library, London, United KingdomThe Private Library
AbeBooks seller since July 1, 2025
Condition: Used - Very good
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From the Library of John Russell Taylor.
Seller Inventory # PL-10246-L99
- Title
- Articulating the Elephant Man: Joseph Merrick and His Interpreters (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
- Author
- Graham, Professor Peter W.; Oehlschlaeger, Professor Fritz H.
- Publisher
- The Johns Hopkins University Press
- Publication year
- 1992
- Condition
- Very Good
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 080184357X
- ISBN 13
- 9780801843570
In Articulating the Elephant Man, Peter W. Graham and Fritz H. Oehlschlaeger examine how the phenomenon called "the Elephant Man" has been constructed and reconstructed--how Joseph Merrick has been transformed from a suffering individual into an exhibit, a shape-shifting curiosity whose different guises variously suit the needs of particular audiences, genres, and interpreters. Merrick's "presenters" have been a varied group of artists, medical experts, scholars, and biographers. But preceding them all is Merrick himself, no mere passive sufferer but an individual who bravely endured--and, when he had to, successfully exploited--his outrageous bodily disorder.
According to Graham and Oehlschlaeger, each account--starting with Merrick's autobiographical pamphlet--blends description and creation, observation and self-revelation, and the selective recording, alteration, and suppression of details. Telling the story of the Elephant Man, whether as a drama, a film, a sequence of poems, or a medical case study, often reveals as much about the observer as it does about the subject. The Victorians' accounts of Merrick, for example, reflect that era's tendency to normalize the extraordinary, to colonize the exotic. For them, Merrick was both an ideal object of charity and a challenge to their most basic assumptions about humanity. In our own time, Merrick is cast as the ultimate outsider. If it was culturally convenient for the Victorians to patronize Merrick and congratulate his "benefactors," contemporary cultural biases make it easier for us to admire him as a subversive hero and to debunk his "exploiters."
Like the hero of a folk tale, the real Merrick suffered indignities but enjoyed a dramatic change of fortune. At the end of his life, he had attained a measure of comfort, a small portion of fame, and the courteous notice of the eminent, the beautiful, even the royal. At the heart of his story, the authors suggest, is Merrick's humanity--and telling his story helps us define our own. Merrick faced what every human being who grows old or falls ill must endure, the sufferer's painful questions about cause and effect, about personal guilt or cosmic cruelty. He knew the isolation felt by every outsider--the poor, the homeless, the victimized, even the modern "superstar." And, like each of us, he must have wondered if appearance is, after all, a misleading mask.
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Review
"An attempt to explain why the life of Joseph Merrick... has proved so durably fascinating... Themes of loneliness, the disparity between outer appearance and inner reality, and the costs of celebrity swirl through the book." -- Washington Post Book World
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The Private Library
London, United Kingdom
AbeBooks seller since July 1, 2025
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Filling virtually every corner of his Brook Green apartment, John Russell Taylor's legendary library reflects the incredible breadth of interest that shaped his mind during his almost 30 years as art critic for the Times. Ranging from the fine and decorative arts to drama, cinema, music, poetry, literary studies, biography, bibliography, and London topography, his collection also contains several dozen of his own works, including the only authorised biography of Alfred Hitchcock. The first 5000 of his books on the visual arts - including rare, signed, and limited editions are now for sale. To keep updated on new releases, follow us on Instagram @theprivate.library (https://www.instagram.com/theprivate.library/)…
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