Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Dark Nights, Bright Lights : Night, Darkness, and Illumination in Literature / ed. by Susanne Bach, Folkert Degenring.

Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextSeries: Buchreihe der Anglia / Anglia Book Series ; 50Publisher: Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter, [2015]Copyright date: ©2015Description: 1 online resource (234 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9783110415100
  • 9783110415629
  • 9783110415292
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 809/.9333 23/eng/20231120
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Table of Contents -- Introduction: Dark Nights, Bright Lights -- City Nights, City Lights in London Literature of the 1890s -- “The Hours of the Day and the Night Are Ours Equally”: Dracula and the Lighting Technologies of Victorian London -- “Light of Life”: Gender, Place, and Knowledge in H.G. Wells’ Ann Veronica -- The Literary Realisation of Electric Light in the Early 20th Century: Artificial Illumination in H. G. Wells and E.M. Forster -- Public and Private Light in Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day -- Serenading the Night in Benjamin Britten’s Opus 31 -- Darkness Visible: Night, Light, and Liminality in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles and Jed Rubenfeld’s The Death Instinct -- The Blackout of Community: Charlotte Jones’ The Dark -- Genre, Gender, Mythology: Functions of Light and Darkness in Terry Pratchett’s Feet of Clay and Thud! -- Twenty Thousand Lights Hanging from the Ceiling: Ecocatastrophe in Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles -- On Behalf of the Dark? Functionalisations of Light Pollution in Fiction -- Index -- About the Contributors
Summary: Light and darkness shape our perception of the world. This is true in a literal sense, but also metaphorically: in theology, philosophy, literature and the arts the light of day signifies life, safety, knowledge and all that is good, while the darkness of the night suggests death, danger, ignorance and evil. A closer inspection, however, reveals that things are not quite so clear cut and that light and darkness cannot be understood as simple binary opposites. On a biological level, for example, daylight and darkness are inseparable factors in the calibration of our circadian rhythms, and a lack of periodical darkness appears to be as contrary to health as a lack of exposure to sunlight. On a cultural level, too, night and darkness are far from being universally condemnable: in fiction, drama and poetry the darkness of the night allows not only nightmares but also dreams, it allows criminals to ply their trade and allows lovers to meet, it allows the pursuit of pleasure as well as deep thought, it allows metamorphoses, transformations and transgressions unthinkable in the light of day. But night is not merely darkness. The night gains significance as an alternative space, as an ‘other of the day’, only when it is at least partially illuminated. The volume examines the interconnection of night, darkness and nocturnal illumination across a broad range of literary texts. The individual essays examine historically specific light conditions in literature, tracing the symbolic and metaphoric content of darkness and illumination and the attitudes towards them.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9783110415292

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Table of Contents -- Introduction: Dark Nights, Bright Lights -- City Nights, City Lights in London Literature of the 1890s -- “The Hours of the Day and the Night Are Ours Equally”: Dracula and the Lighting Technologies of Victorian London -- “Light of Life”: Gender, Place, and Knowledge in H.G. Wells’ Ann Veronica -- The Literary Realisation of Electric Light in the Early 20th Century: Artificial Illumination in H. G. Wells and E.M. Forster -- Public and Private Light in Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day -- Serenading the Night in Benjamin Britten’s Opus 31 -- Darkness Visible: Night, Light, and Liminality in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles and Jed Rubenfeld’s The Death Instinct -- The Blackout of Community: Charlotte Jones’ The Dark -- Genre, Gender, Mythology: Functions of Light and Darkness in Terry Pratchett’s Feet of Clay and Thud! -- Twenty Thousand Lights Hanging from the Ceiling: Ecocatastrophe in Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles -- On Behalf of the Dark? Functionalisations of Light Pollution in Fiction -- Index -- About the Contributors

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Light and darkness shape our perception of the world. This is true in a literal sense, but also metaphorically: in theology, philosophy, literature and the arts the light of day signifies life, safety, knowledge and all that is good, while the darkness of the night suggests death, danger, ignorance and evil. A closer inspection, however, reveals that things are not quite so clear cut and that light and darkness cannot be understood as simple binary opposites. On a biological level, for example, daylight and darkness are inseparable factors in the calibration of our circadian rhythms, and a lack of periodical darkness appears to be as contrary to health as a lack of exposure to sunlight. On a cultural level, too, night and darkness are far from being universally condemnable: in fiction, drama and poetry the darkness of the night allows not only nightmares but also dreams, it allows criminals to ply their trade and allows lovers to meet, it allows the pursuit of pleasure as well as deep thought, it allows metamorphoses, transformations and transgressions unthinkable in the light of day. But night is not merely darkness. The night gains significance as an alternative space, as an ‘other of the day’, only when it is at least partially illuminated. The volume examines the interconnection of night, darkness and nocturnal illumination across a broad range of literary texts. The individual essays examine historically specific light conditions in literature, tracing the symbolic and metaphoric content of darkness and illumination and the attitudes towards them.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 25. Jun 2024)