Commercializing Crimes and the Newgate Fiction
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Focusing on the Newgate texts by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the founder of the Newgate fiction, and William Harrison Ainsworth, the most favored Newgate novelist, this paper examines how this particular type of fiction became a popular entertainment in early Victorian Britain. The reason of popularity of this particular type of fiction about criminals has been explained as the result of various dislocations in the 1830s in Britain. This paper argues that the huge popularity achieved by the Newgate fiction had little to do with the social criticism in the novels or popular fear of crimes and much to do with the sentimentalism, sensationalism, and mysticism frequently found in Newgate novels. Newgate texts relied not on the serious inquiry into the relation between the criminal disorder and inhuman laws, but on romance and melodrama for their popular appeal. They metamorphose serious crimes into merry, free-spirited acts and low criminals into mystic scholars and gallant outlaws. Their social protest is overwhelmed by the romanticized description of criminal life and engulfed in the melodramatic narrative structure and sensationalized description of crude violence.
Abstract
Focusing on the Newgate texts by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the founder of the Newgate fiction, and William Harrison Ainsworth, the most favored Newgate novelist, this paper examines how this particular type of fiction became a popular entertainment in early Victorian Britain. The reason of popularity of this particular type of fiction about criminals has been explained as the result of various dislocations in the 1830s in Britain. This paper argues that the huge popularity achieved by the Newgate fiction had little to do with the social criticism in the novels or popular fear of crimes and much to do with the sentimentalism, sensationalism, and mysticism frequently found in Newgate novels. Newgate texts relied not on the serious inquiry into the relation between the criminal disorder and inhuman laws, but on romance and melodrama for their popular appeal. They metamorphose serious crimes into merry, free-spirited acts and low criminals into mystic scholars and gallant outlaws. Their social protest is overwhelmed by the romanticized description of criminal life and engulfed in the melodramatic narrative structure and sensationalized description of crude violence.
참고문헌 (23)
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