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case1212645077.pdf (698.72 KB)
ETD Abstract Container
Abstract Header
Cemetery Plots from Victoria to Verdun: Literary Representations of Epitaph and Burial from the Nineteenth Century through the Great War
Author Info
Kichner, Heather J.
Permalink:
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1212645077
Abstract Details
Year and Degree
2008, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, English.
Abstract
Cemetery Plots
considers the rhetoric of burial reform, cemeterial customs, and epitaph writing in Great Britain from the mid-nineteenth century through the Great War. The first half of the dissertation studies mid- and late-Victorian responses to death and burial, including epitaph collections, burial reform documents, and fictional representations of burial and epitaph writing, especially in the novels of Charles Dickens. It traces expressions of cultural anxiety about individuality and the preservation of identity through an examination of Victorian mourning customs and literary representations of memorialization. The second half of the dissertation studies this same discourse of burial, epitaphs and mourning in the fiction, memoirs, diaries, correspondence, and poems produced in response to the First World War in order to understand how writings about individual memorialization changed in post-war British literature and culture. By examining how authors such as Charles Dickens, Ivor Gurney, Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, and Virginia Woolf wrote about cemeteries, epitaphs, and burial practices, the dissertation demonstrates how the exaltation of individual identity in nineteenth-century memorialization practices gave way to an increasing skepticism about the delineation and preservation of individuality in the early twentieth century, as war writers altered and even disregarded Victorian notions of the individual when they wrote to remember. The Victorians' consumption of epitaphs, social novels, and reform documents like Edwin Chadwick's
Sanitation Report
provided the chance to develop new ideas about the individual, as well as mourning customs, social standing, and definitions of middle-class identity. By the time Woolf wrote
Jacob's Room
, however, the power and centrality of cemeteries and individual epitaphs had been called into question. Because of the Great War, writers had come to doubt the stability of both language and identity, and their fiction, poetry, and memoirs effectively challenged the ability of individualized burial practices, lengthy epitaphs, or other traditional forms of memorialization to capture the identity of the dead.
Committee
Athena Vrettos, PhD (Advisor)
Kurt Koenigsberger, PhD (Committee Member)
William Siebenschuh, PhD (Committee Member)
Renee Sentilles, PhD (Committee Member)
Roger Salomon, PhD (Other)
Pages
225 p.
Subject Headings
English literature
Keywords
epitaph
;
cemeteries
;
burial
;
identity
;
war memorials
;
World War I
;
Unknown Soldier
;
Cenotaph
;
Charles Dickens
;
Ivor Gurney
;
Edwin Campion Vaughn
;
Robert Graves
;
Siegfried Sassoon
;
Virginia Woolf
;
Bleak House
;
Jacob's Room
Recommended Citations
Refworks
EndNote
RIS
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Citations
Kichner, H. J. (2008).
Cemetery Plots from Victoria to Verdun: Literary Representations of Epitaph and Burial from the Nineteenth Century through the Great War
[Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1212645077
APA Style (7th edition)
Kichner, Heather.
Cemetery Plots from Victoria to Verdun: Literary Representations of Epitaph and Burial from the Nineteenth Century through the Great War.
2008. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation.
OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center
, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1212645077.
MLA Style (8th edition)
Kichner, Heather. "Cemetery Plots from Victoria to Verdun: Literary Representations of Epitaph and Burial from the Nineteenth Century through the Great War." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1212645077
Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)
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Document number:
case1212645077
Download Count:
3,156
Copyright Info
© 2008, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.