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"Mirror With a Memory": Photography as Metaphor and Material Object in Victorian Culture

Worman, Sarah E., Ms.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu149151628521588

Abstract Details

2017, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, English/Literature.
In the Victorian period, photography was associated with the ghosts of history, con artists in the streets of London, and cultural anxieties about the future of Victorian society. The Victorian practice of photographing ghosts, or spirit photography, showed how Victorians viewed the past, present, and future. By examining the cultural artifact of Georgiana Houghton’s Chronicles of the Photographs of Spiritual Beings (1882), it becomes clear how photography affected Victorian literature as well as Victorian culture. In the short stories, “Oke of Okehurst” (1886) and “A Wicked Voice” (1887), Vernon Lee compared Victorian produced art to art from history. For Lee, the fast paced and highly commercialized art, which was influenced by photography, was not as powerful as art with historical context. An earlier work, Thomas Hardy’s A Laodicean: A Story of To-Day (1881), also showed the connections between photography, history, and uncertainty. The characters try to use photography to try and preserve a crumbling medieval castle, but their attempts end in failure. While technology like telegraphs gives Paula a sense of power, the novel leaves her wishing she had a more stable connection to the past and the future. These examples of Victorian literature show that photography affected Victorian culture at a deeper level than previously thought. Photography changed the way Victorians thought about the past, present, and future.
Piya Pal-Lapinski, Dr. (Advisor)
Kim Coates, Dr. (Committee Member)
83 p.
Art History; British and Irish Literature; Gender; Literature
Photography; Victorian; Victorian Literature; Vernon Lee; Oke of Okehurst; A Wicked Voice; Thomas Hardy; A Laodicean; Julia Margaret Cameron; Tennyson; Spirit Photography; Georgiana Houghton

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Worman, Ms. , S. E. (2017). "Mirror With a Memory": Photography as Metaphor and Material Object in Victorian Culture [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu149151628521588

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Worman, Ms. , Sarah. "Mirror With a Memory": Photography as Metaphor and Material Object in Victorian Culture. 2017. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu149151628521588.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Worman, Ms. , Sarah. ""Mirror With a Memory": Photography as Metaphor and Material Object in Victorian Culture." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu149151628521588

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu149151628521588
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This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.