The Death Penalty in Dickens and Derrida

The Last Sentence of the Law

Jeremy Tambling (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

224 Seiten

2024
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-350-35457-9 (ISBN)

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In the nineteenth century, Charles Dickens backed the cause of abolition of the death penalty and wrote comprehensively about it, in public letters and in his novels. At the end of the twentieth century, Jacques Derrida ran two years of seminars on the subject, which were published posthumously. What the novelist and the philosopher of deconstruction discussed independently, this book brings into comparison.

Tambling examines crime and punishment in Dickens’s novels Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist and Bleak House and explores those who influenced Dickens’s work, including Hogarth, Fielding, Godwin and Edgar Allen Poe. This book also looks at those who influenced Derrida – Freud, Nietzsche, Foucault and Blanchot – and considers Derrida’s study on terrorism and the USA as the only major democracy adhering to the death penalty.

A comprehensive study of punishment in Dickens, and furthering Derrida’s insights by commenting on Shakespeare and blood, revenge, the French Revolution, and the enduring power of violence and its fascination, this book is a major contribution to literary criticism on Dickens and Derrida. Those interested in literature, criminology, law, gender, and psychoanalysis will find it an essential intervention in a topic still rousing intense argument.

Jeremy Tambling was Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong, and then Professor of Literature at the University of Manchester. He is now part-time Professor at the Warsaw University of Social Sciences and Humanities (SWPS), Poland, and author of over twenty books, plus articles.

Frequently Cited Texts and Abbreviations

Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction: 'Growing Up to be Hanged'

PART ONE: Dickens - And The Eighteenth Century
CHAPTER I - Abolition and Dickens
CHAPTER 2- Fielding, Hogarth, and Dickens
CHAPTER 3 - Barnaby Rudge: Poe, and Caleb Williams

PART 2 - Derrida - The French Revolution Onwards
CHAPTER 4 - Deconstruction and Justice
CHAPTER 5 – The Death Penalty Seminars
CHAPTER 6 - Decapitation in A Tale of Two Cities
CHAPTER 7 - On the USA: Violence and Terrorism

In Conclusion

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	12.11.2024
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
ISBN-10	1-350-35457-0 / 1350354570
ISBN-13	978-1-350-35457-9 / 9781350354579
Zustand	Neuware