Literary Twinship from Shakespeare to the Age of Cloning

1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-0-367-43789-3
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 260 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 535 g

Reihe: Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory

Unlike previous efforts that have only addressed literary twinship as a footnote to the doppelganger motif, this book makes a case for the complexity of literary twinship across the literary spectrum. Shortlisted for the ESSE Book Award 2022 (Literatures in the English Language), it shows how twins have been instrumental to the formation of comedies of mistaken identity, the detective genre, and dystopian science fiction. The individual chapters trace the development of the category of twinship over time, demonstrating how the twin was repeatedly (re-)invented as a cultural and pathological type when other discursive fields constituted themselves, and how its literary treatment served as the battleground for ideological disputes: by setting the stage for debates regarding kinship and reproduction, or by partaking in discussions of criminality, eugenic greatness, and ‘monstrous births’. The book addresses nearly 100 primary texts, including works of Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Priest, William Shakespeare, and Zadie Smith.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Schwanebeck, Wieland

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Lyrik und Dichter
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introducing twins

Conceiving twins

Confusing twins

Appropriating twins

Detecting twins

Multiplying twins

Untangling twins

Über Autor(innen)

Wieland Schwanebeck is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and American Studies at TU Dresden (Germany). His research focuses on British literature, gender and masculinity, impostors, humour, and adaptation. He has co-edited the Metzler Handbook of Masculinity Studies (2016) and, most recently, Patricia Highsmith on Screen (2018).