Re-imagining the 'dark continent' in fin de siècle literature / Robbie McLaughlan.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

Militibus Christi -- Behind the Black Velvet curtain -- Preaching to the nerves.

Maps the fin de si÷cle mission to open up the 'Dark Continent'<.i> Although nineteenth-century map-makers imposed topographic definition upon a perceived geographical void, writers of Adventure fiction, and other colonial writers, continued to nourish the idea of a cartographic absence in their work. This study explores the effects of this epistemological blankness in fin de si÷cle literature, and its impact upon early Modernist culture, through the emerging discipline of psychoanalysis and the debt that Freud owed to African exploration. The chapters examine: representations of Black Africa in missionary writing and Rider Haggard's narratives on Africa; cartographic tradition in Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections; and mesmeric fiction, such as Richard Marsh's The Beetle, Robert Buchanan's The Charlatan and George du Maurier's Trilby. As Robbie McLaughlan demonstrates, it was the late Victorian 'best-seller' which merged an arcane Central African imagery with an interest in psychic phenomena. Key Features:. * Opens up the 'dark continent' and its literary, historical and theoretical manifestations * Argues for an anticipation of a modernist aesthetic suggesting an unexplored relation between fin de si÷cle sensation literature, in particular mesmeric fiction, and psychoanalysis * Diverges from established colonial histories by drawing on an archive of special and neglected material Keywords:. postcolonial, psychoanalysis, fin de si÷cle, mesmerism, colonial, missionary, cartography

English.

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