Focusing on the late nineteenth century, the book examines how female novelists, travel writers, and painters represented colonial otherness through the lens of exoticism. It delves into the interplay of realism and romance while addressing epistemological concerns about identity and difference, such as self versus other and familiarity versus strangeness. By linking fictional and non-fictional texts with visual art, the author highlights the artistic challenges and conventions of the era in depicting the exotic.
This study re-evaluates the work of Marie Corelli (1855-1924), the first English bestselling author of the one-volume novel, challenging the notion that her novels are mere popular fiction unworthy of critical analysis. It reassesses a selection of her fictional works, theoretical writings, and correspondence, aiming to understand the aesthetic of the popular through three themes: poetics, romance, and religion. The analysis employs various theoretical models, including genre theory, theories of the sublime, Frankfurt School theories, gender theory, and contemporary psychoanalytical models. Building on Rita Felski’s concept of Corelli as a writer of the "popular sublime," the introduction posits that Corelli instinctively develops a feminine sublime, characterized by a desire to merge with the sublime rather than dominate it through reason. This feminine sublime manifests in a non-rational rhetoric, reflecting the subject’s struggle to communicate experience. Expressed through the romance genre, it embodies a yearning for the metaphysical and a mode of excess. Three chapters delve into Corelli’s main themes—Aesthetics, Love, and Religion—analyzing how she adapts these transcendental ideas for a populist audience. Additionally, the book explores the proto-modernist elements in Corelli’s work, revealing surprising connections between her turn-of-the-century populism and the modernist movement.
Marie Corelli (1855-1924) war die erste englische Bestsellerautorin. Eine äusserst heterogene Leserschaft, die vom Küchenmädchen zur Königin reichte und Persönlichkeiten wie Königin Viktoria, Lord Tennyson, William Butler Yeats, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, William Gladstone und Henry Irving umfasste, wartete gespannt auf jeden neuen Corelli-Roman, auch wenn die Kritiker und die literarische Elite einen solchen Popularismus verachteten und verurteilten. 1895 brach Corelli alle Rekorde mit der Publikation ihres Romans The Sorrows of Satan. Temporal Power (1902) hatte eine Erstauflagenzahl von 120.000 und The Treasure of Heaven (1906) verkaufte schon am ersten Tag 100.000 Exemplare. Marie Corelli und der spätviktorianische Bestseller zeichnet die sozio-ökonomischen Entwicklungen nach, die das Entstehen des Bestsellers am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts ermöglichten. Das Buch verfolgt die charakteristischen Züge des Bestsellertums in der spätviktorianischen Zeit, erklärt die Gründe für den Aufstieg Corellis und ihren einzigartigen Erfolg und eröffnet Fragen bezüglich eines adäquaten Bewertungsmassstabs für Populärliteratur.
