Sensationalism made real : the role of realism in the production of sensational affect

Allan, JM 2015, 'Sensationalism made real : the role of realism in the production of sensational affect' , Victorian Literature and Culture, 43 (01) , pp. 97-112.

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Abstract

Like all complicated relationships, that between realism and sensationalism has been subject to a good deal of rumour and speculation. In what might be described as the pair's first critical encounter – in an 1852 joint review of W. M. Thackeray's The History of Henry Esmond and Wilkie Collins's proto-sensation novel Basil – a critic for Bentley's Miscellany intimates that a partnership between two such different forms is anything but likely. “We have,” he explains, “put these two books ‘over against’ each other, to use one of Mr. Thackeray's favourite Queen-Anne-isms, because they have no kind of family resemblance. They are, indeed, as unlike each other as any two books can be. They constitute a kind of literary antithesis” (“Esmond” 576). The inherently contradictory nature of this originary “over against” gesture – conflating proximity and distance, contiguity and difference – sets the keynote for subsequent discussions, contemporaneous and current, of a generic relationship that continues to attract and elude definition.

Item Type:	Article
Schools:	Schools > School of Arts & Media > Arts, Media and Communication Research Centre
Journal or Publication Title:	Victorian Literature and Culture
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	1060-1503
Related URLs:	Publication
Funders:	Non funded research
Depositing User:	JM Allan
Date Deposited:	16 Dec 2015 09:38
Last Modified:	25 Nov 2019 13:15
URI:	http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/37554

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