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Fear, phobia and the Victorian psyche

Abstract:
Carl Westphal’s classic paper on ‘Agoraphobia’ of 1871 laid the foundations for the rapid development of work on phobias, fears and obsessions which sprang up in the last decades of the nineteenth century. This essay explores the intersection of medical and literary discourses of pathological fear as they emerged in the latter half of the century, looking particularly at the ways in which psychiatry turned to literature for case studies of phobia and obsession. I consider the work on fear of, amongst others, American psychologist G. Stanley Hall, and the Italian Angelo Mosso, before focusing on the role played by George Borrow’s neglected work, Lavengro (1851) in the development of late nineteenth-century psychiatric models of fear.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

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Files:
Publisher copy:
10.1057/978-1-137-55948-7_9

Authors


More by this author
Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
HUMS
Department:
English Faculty
Oxford college:
St Anne's College
Role:
Author
ORCID:
0000-0002-1261-7433

Contributors

Institution:
University of Oxford
Oxford college:
Lincoln College
Role:
Editor


Publisher:
Palgrave Macmillan
Host title:
Fear in the Medical and Literary Imagination, Medieval to Modern: Dreadful Passions
Pages:
177–201
Series:
Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine
Place of publication:
London
Publication date:
2018-05-20
DOI:
EISSN:
2634-6443
ISSN:
2634-6435
EISBN:
9781137559487
ISBN-10:
1137559470
ISBN-13:
9781137559470


Language:
English
Pubs id:
pubs:995075
UUID:
uuid:64cb6826-c1d6-4123-bebb-1ae5d6ce4044
Local pid:
pubs:995075
Source identifiers:
995075
Deposit date:
2019-09-06

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