Research Catalog

Title

The corpse as text : disinterment and antiquarian enquiry, 1700-1900 / Thea Tomaini.

Author

Tomaini, Thea.

Publication

Woodbridge, [Suffolk] ; Rochester, NY : The Boydell Press, 2017.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 241 p. : 25 ill.; 24 cm

Summary

Between 1700 and 1900, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were stereotyped, idealised, and held as a standard by which the present time could be measured. Various figures in politics, academia, and the church pointed to historical persons such as Henry VIII, Shakespeare, Charles I, and Oliver Cromwell as icons whose lives, deaths and corpses illustrated the victories of English Protestantism, the values of Monarchism (or Republicanism), and the superiority of the English culture and its language. In particular, the subject of disinterment (exhumation) attracted the attention of antiquaries. They constructed a comprehensive memory of the past by 'reading' corpses as documents describing an idealised past. These 'texts' accompanied and enhanced the traditional texts of chronicle, literature, and epitaph.

Subject

• Antiquities > Political aspects > England
• Exhumation > England > History
• Grave robbing > England > History
• Nationalism and literature > England > History
• Great Britain > History > Political aspects
• Great Britain > History > Historiography. > 1714-1837
• Great Britain > History > Historiography. > Victoria, 1837-1901

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [215]-233) and index.

Call Number

JFE 17-5751

ISBN

• 9781783271948 (hbk.)
• 1783271949 (hbk.)

OCLC

957532655

Author

Tomaini, Thea.

Title

The corpse as text : disinterment and antiquarian enquiry, 1700-1900 / Thea Tomaini.

Imprint

Woodbridge, [Suffolk] ; Rochester, NY : The Boydell Press, 2017.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (p. [215]-233) and index.

Research Call Number

JFE 17-5751