The Rise and Fall of the Femme Fatale in British Literature, 17901910

By (author) Heather L. Braun

Not available to order

Publication date:

31 August 2012

Length of book:

176 pages

Publisher

Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

ISBN-13: 9781611475630

The Rise and Fall of the Femme Fatale: From Gothic Ghosts to Victorian Vamps explores the femme fatale’s career in nineteenth-century British literature. It traces her evolution—and devolution—formally, historically, and ideologically through a selection of plays, poems, novels, and personal correspondence. Considering well-known fatal women alongside more obscure ones, The Rise and Fall of the Femme Fatale sheds new light on emerging notions of gender, sexuality, and power throughout the long nineteenth century. By placing the fatal woman in a still developing literary and cultural narrative, this study examines how the femme fatale adapts over time, reflecting popular tastes and socio-economic landscapes.

Contents
Introduction: Literary Form and the Nineteenth-Century Femme Fatal
Chapter 1: The Gothic Ballad and the Supernatural Femme Fatal
Chapter 2: The Realist Novel and the Romanticized Femme Fatal
Chapter 3: From Sensation Novel to Vampire Tale: The Erotic Femme Fatal
Chapter 4: Decsdence, Self-Awareness, and the Decline of the Femme Fatal
Conclusion: Reprising the Femme Fatal

Heather Braun opens her book-length study of the femme fatale in British literature by observing that this figure is 'at once everywhere yet difficult to pin down.' Braun's focus on the 'varying effects of literary form on ideological construction of the femme fatale'—for instance, her argument about the way in which the interplay between the ballad form and other-worldly enchantresses exposes and constructs romantic thinking about ideals of femininity and the fatality of desire—is certainly refreshing.