A Cultural History of the Senses in the Age of Empire

282 Pages·2018·9.085 MB·English

by  Constance Classen (editor)

A CULTURAL HISTORY OF
THE SENSES
VOLUME 5
A CULTURAL HISTORY
OF THE SENSES
IN THE AGE
OF
EMPIRE
Edited by Constance Classen
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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First published in Great Britain 2014
This edition published 2019
Copyright© Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014, 2019
Constance Classen has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identified as Editor of this work.
For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on p.xi constitute an extension of this copyright page.
Cover image: The Transept at the Great Exhibition in Crystal Palace, the glass and iron
building at Hyde Park, London. Original artwork from Dickinson's Comprehensive Pictures
of the Great Exhibition (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images).
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.
A cultural history of the senses in the age of empire, 1800-1920 / edited by
Constance Classen.
pages cm
lncludes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-85785-343-1 (hardback)
l. Senses and sensation-History. 2. Europe-Colonies.1. Classen, Constance, 1957-
BF233.C852 2014
152.109'034--<ic23
2014005104
ISBN: HB: 978-0-8578-5343-1
PB: 978-1-3500-7800-0
ePDF: 978-1-4742-3307-1
eBook: 978-1-4742-3308-8
HB Set: 978-0-8578-5338-7
PB Set: 978-1-3500-7783-6
Series: The Cultural Histories Series
Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed and bound in Great Britain
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CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Vil
SERIES PREFACE X
EDITOR'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
Introduction: The Transformation of Perception 1
Constance Classen
1 The Social Life of the Senses: The Assaults and Seductions
of Modernity 25
Kate Flint
2 Urban Sensations: The Shifting Sensescape of the City 47
Alain Corbin
3 The Senses in the Marketplace: Stimulation and Distraction,
Gratification and Control 69
Erika D. Rappaport
4 The Senses in Religion: Migrations of Sacred and Sensory Values 89
David Morgan
5 The Senses in Philosophy and Science: From the Senses to
Sensations 113
Robert Jütte
6 The Senses in Medicine: Seeing, Hearing and Smelling Disease 137
David S. Barnes
VI CONTENTS
7 The Senses in Literature: Industry and Empire 161
Nicho/as Daly
8 Art and the Senses: From the Romantics to the Futurists 185
Constance Classen
9 Sensory Media: The World Without and the World Within 211
Alison Griffiths
NOTES 235
BIBLIOGRAPHY 239
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 263
INDEX 267
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Strong men, weak women? A leader of the Women's Suffrage
Movement being arrested. 4
1.2 Admiring the new electric lights in London. 9
1.3 The Heaven of the Fixed Stars by Gustave Doré. 14
1.4 The new consumer heaven: Le Bon Marché by Fréderic Lix. 14
1.5 "Silent rows of laboring prisoners in the Middlesex House of
Correction." 16
1.6 The trench experience. 22
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Unloading Tea at the Port of London by William Bazett Murray. 2 7
1.2 Covent Carden Market by Phoebus Levin. 29
1.3 Women Fingering Clothes in a Street Market by Gustave Doré. 41
CHAPTER TWO
2.1 An Organ Grinder in a London Courtyard by Gustave Doré. 50
2.2 The lure of advertising: Paris Kiosk by Jean Beraud. 52
2.3 Combing the sewers for valuables. 59
2.4 Policing urban recesses: The Bull's Eye by Gustave Doré. 63
2.5 A narrow and dank Parisian street. 66
viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CHAPTER THREE
3.1 The Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, Brussels. 74
3.2 Shoppers and traders in the covered market at Kirgate, Leeds. 75
3.3 A hosiery stall in Berwick Street Market, London. 77
3.4 Bon Marché department store, Paris. 79
CHAPTER FOUR
4.1 Oriental group in Palestine Park. 92
4.2 Jerusalem rebuilt. 94
4.3 Printing press and distribution of tracts. 100
4.4 Representation of Durga. 105
4.5 Infant Siddhartha Gautama Receiving Veneration from
Naga Kings, by Oiga Kopetzky. 110
CHAPTER FIVE
5.1 An ophalmotrope for the study of eye movements. 125
5.2 A vibration microscope used to visualize sound. 128
5.3 Gustav Jager in his woolen suit designed to resist contaminating
odors. 131
CHAPTER SIX
6.1 The microscopic view: the late nineteenth-century bacteriologist
Robert Koch at work in his laboratory. 139
6.2 Medical listening: Laennec auscultares a consumptive patient,
by Théobald Chartran. 142
6.3 Stench and squalor: Jacob's Island, London. 147
6.4 Filth and fever: "A Court for King Cholera". 150
CHAPTER SEVEN
7.1 Portrait of William Wordsworth by Henry Wlliam Pickersgill. 163
7.2 Portrait of Charles Baudelaire by Nadar. 175
7.3 Portrait of Osear Wilde by Napoleon Sarony. 179
7.4 A book cover designed by Will Bradley. 182
LIST OF ILLUSTRA TIONS ix
CHAPTER EIGHT
8.1 "Women's work": nineteenth-century Irish crochet lace. 187
8.2 Boulevard des Capucines by Claude Monet. 190
8.3 Salome Dancing Before Herod by Gustave Moreau. 192
8.4 The Three Brides by Jan Toorop. 193
8.5 Portrait of Loie Fuller by Frederick Glasser. 197
8.6 Neo-Gothic architecture: interior of the Great Western Hall,
Fonthill Abbey. 201
8. 7 Unique Forms of Continuity in Space by Umberto Boccioni. 209
CHAPTER NINE
9.1 Capturing native voices: a recording session with a Blackfoot
chief. 218
9.2 A virtual voyage: the Mareorama. 221
9.3 Sensory deprivation in Newgate Prison, illustration by Gustave
Doré. 228
9.4 New spectades of light: Reynaud's Théatre Optique by
Louis Poyet. 232
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their
permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any
errors or omissions there may be in the credits for the illustrations and would
be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future
editions of this book.
SERIES PREFACE
GENERAL EDITOR, CONSTANCE CLASSEN
A Cultural History of the Senses is an authoritative six-volurne series
investigating sensory values and experiences throughout Western history and
presenting a vital new way of understanding the past. Each volume follows the
same basic structure and begins with an overview of the cultural life of the
senses in the period under consideration. Experts examine important aspects of
sensory culture under nine major headings: social life, urban sensations, the
marketplace, religion, philosophy and science, medicine, literature, art, and
media. A single volume can be read to obtain a thorough knowledge of the life
of the senses in a given period, or one of the nine themes can be followed
through history by reading the relevant chapters of all six volumes, providing
a thematic understanding of changes and developments over the long term.
The six volumes divide the history of the senses as follows:
Volume l. A Cultural History of the Senses in Antiquity (500 BCE-500 CE)
Volume 2. A Cultural History of the Senses in the Middle Ages (500-1450)
Volume 3. A Cultural History of the Senses in the Renaissance (1450-1650)
Volume 4. A Cultural History of the Senses in the Age of Enlightenment
(1650-1800)
Volume 5. A Cultural History of the Senses in the Age of Empire
(1800-1920)
Volume 6. A Cultural History of the Senses in the Modern Age (1920-2000)