PJAS 15 Spring-1
Paweł Stachura
Materiality, Electricity and the Soul in Edgar Fawcett’s Scientific Romances
Polish Journal for American Studies, vol. 15 (Spring 2021), pp. 5-16
Abstract: The article discusses two novels by Edgar Fawcett, a prolific poet and novelist active in the 1890s, as examples of materialist representation of psychology. Fawcett’s literary materialism was not only a thematic reference to his contemporary science, but a certain convention of characterization, which emphasized mystery and drastic imagery as means of character development. Numerous other examples of this tendency in the 1890s are described as well. The theoretical background is derived from the recent materialist turn in literary criticism.
Keywords: Edgar Fawcett, Gilded Age, science fiction, materiality
DOI: 10.7311/PJAS.15/1/2021.01