Freak Shows on the Page: Defining ‘criminanimality’ in Newgate Fiction (1830-1847)
The early Victorian era was marked by a specific concern as regards criminality, a concern that was relayed in literature, notably through Newgate novels. In these, we discover portraits of criminals whose infamy was linked with and defined via the prism of animality. Through Newgate texts and engra...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
2017-03-01
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| Series: | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/cve/3211 |
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| Summary: | The early Victorian era was marked by a specific concern as regards criminality, a concern that was relayed in literature, notably through Newgate novels. In these, we discover portraits of criminals whose infamy was linked with and defined via the prism of animality. Through Newgate texts and engravings, the animal metaphor first appears as an ideological tool used to deprecate vile human beings who disrupted the law, linking their misdeeds to their apparent savagery. Such perception is necessarily stereotypical and schematic, reducing animality and criminality to sheer instinctualism. However, in their attempt to debunk the criminal code of the time, Newgate novelists also managed to twist such clichéd vision of ‘criminanimal’ as an evil tandem, and to celebrate highwaymen as glamorous, free knights who denounced the Bloody Code. Such glamorization of the criminal encompasses the animal metaphor which turns out to be virtuous: through it, the animal becomes the criminal’s equal and partner in glory: the ‘criminanimal’ is redefined, both criminal and animal fuse, queer one another and surpass the initial anxieties evoked by their tandem to become an erotically charged duet. |
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| ISSN: | 0220-5610 2271-6149 |