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The Burdens of Intimacy: Psychoanalysis and Victorian Masculinity
Why does passion bewilder and torment so many Victorian protagonists? And why do so many literary characters experience moments of ecstasy before their deaths? In this original study, Christopher Lane shows why Victorian fiction conveys both the pleasure and anguish of intimacy. Examining works by Bulwer-Lytton, Swinburne, Schreiner, Hardy, James, Santayana, and Forster, he argues that these writers struggled with aspects of psychology that undermined the utilitarian ethos of the Victorian age.
344 pages, Paperback
First published December 15, 1998
18 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Lane
10 books7 followersChristopher Lane is a regular contributor to Psychology Today who for many years taught medical humanities, Victorian studies, and the history of medicine at Northwestern University.
He is the author of six books, most recently Surge of Piety: Norman Vincent Peale and the Remaking of American Religious Life (Yale, 2016), on Peale’s self-described “religio-psychiatric” clinic and movement in the 1950s.
His other books include The Age of Doubt: Tracing the Roots of Our Religious Uncertainty (Yale, 2011) and the award-winning Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness (Yale, 2007) on behind-the-scenes changes to the DSM and the creation of the anxiety disorders between the 1970s and 1990s.
Lane’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Slate, TIME, Chronicle Review, Huffington Post, Daily Beast, and several other newspapers and magazines.
He is the author of six books, most recently Surge of Piety: Norman Vincent Peale and the Remaking of American Religious Life (Yale, 2016), on Peale’s self-described “religio-psychiatric” clinic and movement in the 1950s.
His other books include The Age of Doubt: Tracing the Roots of Our Religious Uncertainty (Yale, 2011) and the award-winning Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness (Yale, 2007) on behind-the-scenes changes to the DSM and the creation of the anxiety disorders between the 1970s and 1990s.
Lane’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Slate, TIME, Chronicle Review, Huffington Post, Daily Beast, and several other newspapers and magazines.
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September 7, 2009
c1999 ILL
a crucial distinction between same sex identification, which was actively promoted, and same sex desire which was generally prohibited
p11 top of page
a crucial distinction between same sex identification, which was actively promoted, and same sex desire which was generally prohibited
p11 top of page
Displaying 1 of 1 review