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The Death Penalty in Dickens and Derrida: The Last Sentence of the Law

Hardback

Main Details

Title The Death Penalty in Dickens and Derrida: The Last Sentence of the Law
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Jeremy Tambling
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:224
Dimensions(mm): Height 234,Width 156
Category/GenreLiterary studies - c 1800 to c 1900
Literary studies - fiction, novelists and prose writers
Western philosophy from c 1900 to now
Ethics and moral philosophy
ISBN/Barcode 9781350354555
Audience
Professional & Vocational

Publishing Details

Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Publication Date 4 May 2023
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

In the nineteenth century, Charles Dickens backed the cause of abolition of the death penalty and wrote comprehensively about it, in public letters and in his novels. At the end of the twentieth century, Jacques Derrida ran two years of seminars on the subject, which were published posthumously. What the novelist and the philosopher of deconstruction discussed independently, this book brings into comparison. Tambling examines crime and punishment in Dickens's novels Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist and Bleak House and explores those who influenced Dickens's work, including Hogarth, Fielding, Godwin and Edgar Allen Poe. This book also looks at those who influenced Derrida - Freud, Nietzsche, Foucault and Blanchot - and considers Derrida's study on terrorism and the USA as the only major democracy adhering to the death penalty. A comprehensive study of punishment in Dickens, and furthering Derrida's insights by commenting on Shakespeare and blood, revenge, the French Revolution, and the enduring power of violence and its fascination, this book is a major contribution to literary criticism on Dickens and Derrida. Those interested in literature, criminology, law, gender, and psychoanalysis will find it an essential intervention in a topic still rousing intense argument.

Author Biography

Jeremy Tambling was Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong, and then Professor of Literature at the University of Manchester. He is now part-time Professor at the Warsaw University of Social Sciences and Humanities (SWPS), Poland, and author of over twenty books, plus articles.