Modern Literature and the Death Penalty, 1890-1950

Katherine Ebury author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Published:24th Feb '22

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Modern Literature and the Death Penalty, 1890-1950 cover

This book examines how the cultural and ethical power of literature allowed writers and readers to reflect on the practice of capital punishment in the UK, Ireland and the US between 1890 and 1950. It explores how connections between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture seem particularly inextricable where the death penalty is at stake, analysing a range of forms including major works of canonical literature, detective fiction, plays, polemics, criminological and psychoanalytic tracts and letters and memoirs. The book addresses conceptual understandings of the modern death penalty, including themes such as confession, the gothic, life-writing and the human-animal binary. It also discusses the role of conflict in shaping the representation of capital punishment, including chapters on the Easter Rising, on World War I, on colonial and quasi-colonial conflict and on World War II. Ebury’s overall approach aims to improve our understanding of the centrality of the death penalty and the role it played in major twentieth century literary movements and historical events.

“Ebury’s book is a rich archive of sources, suggestive connections, and strong readings of interest to scholars of modern literature. … Ebury’s book will be of interest to scholars of modern literature, psychoanalysis, and law, for it effectively makes the case that reading the ways these discourses are braided together in the history of capital punishment is not just generative but necessary.” (Ariela Freedman, James Joyce Quarterly, Vol. 59 (3), 2022)

ISBN: 9783030527525

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

282 pages

1st ed. 2021