Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture

292 Pages·2021·5.912 MB·English

by  Ryan Sweet

Prosthetic Body Parts
in Nineteenth-Century
Literature and Culture
Ryan Sweet
Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing
and Culture
Series Editor
Joseph Bristow
Department of English
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture is a mono-
graph series that aims to represent innovative and interdisciplinary research
on literary and cultural works that were produced from the time of the
Napoleonic Wars to the fin de siècle. Attentive to the historical continu-
ities between ‘Romantic’ and ‘Victorian’, the series features studies that
assist in reassessing the meaning of these terms during a century marked
by diverse cultural, literary, and political movements. The aim of the series
is to look at the increasing influence of different types of historicism on
our understanding of literary forms and genres. It reflects a broad shift
from critical theory to cultural history that has affected not only the
1800-1900 period but also every field within the discipline of English lit-
erature. All titles in the series seek to offer fresh critical perspectives and
challenging readings of both canonical and non-canonical writings of
this era.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14607
Ryan Sweet
Prosthetic Body Parts
in Nineteenth-
Century Literature
and Culture
Wellcome Trust
Ryan Sweet
Swansea University
Swansea, West Glamorgan, UK
ISSN 2634-6494 ISSN 2634-6508 (electronic)
Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture
ISBN 978-3-030-78588-8 ISBN 978-3-030-78589-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78589-5
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2022. This book is an open access
publication.
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This book is dedicated to the prosthesis-using women who have shaped my life:
Mum (hip), Nanny Sweet (two knees and a pacemaker), and Jelly
Nan (hip).
a
cknowledgements
Professional and Personal
This book is the result of much collaborative effort. Without the various
generous organisations and individuals who have supported me and my
research, this work would not be appearing before you. Prosthetic Body
Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture is developed from the
research that I completed for my PhD at the University of Exeter from
2012 to 2016. I was fortunate to be funded by an Arts and Humanities
Research Council Medical Humanities Studentship. The revision of my
thesis into a book took place in large part while I was a Wellcome Trust Ins
titutional Strategic Support Fund Fellow at the University of Leeds from
2017 to 2018. I am very grateful for the generous financial support of the
AHRC and the Wellcome Trust. The Wellcome Trust also funded the
open-access publication of this book. This funding is testament to their
support for early career researchers and their commitment to research
accessibility. It would be remiss not to acknowledge the other funding
bodies whose support facilitated discussions of earlier versions of the mate-
rial found here across the United Kingdom and overseas. Thanks to the
British Society for Literature and Science, the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Dickens Project (University
of California, Santa Cruz), and the College of Humanities at the University
of Exeter. I am also hugely thankful to the departments and institutions
that put faith in me to prepare and deliver this book: the Department of
English, Centre for Victorian Studies, and Centre for Medical History at
Exeter; the School of English, Centre for Medical Humanities, and the
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Humanities Research Institute at Leeds; the School of Humanities and
Performing Arts at the University of Plymouth; and the Faculty of
Humanities and Social Sciences at Swansea University.
There are many individuals who deserve acknowledgement. For a start,
I would like to thank my PhD supervisors, Jason Hall and Richard Noakes,
for their hard work and generous support before, during, and after my
PhD. Their guidance and astute comments helped to shape this book.
Perhaps more so than anyone else, I owe Professor Hall a huge debt of
gratitude. If not for his encouragement, I would not have pursued a post-
graduate degree in the first place. I already look forward to working with
Professor Hall on future projects. Angelique Richardson and Graeme
Gooday made the examination of my PhD thesis intellectually stimulating,
rewarding, and enjoyable. They have been excellent mentors since the viva
too. I have been blessed to have the support of many sagacious colleagues,
whose guidance has shaped me into the academic that I am today. Vike
Plock, Stuart Murray, and Mark Jackson, and Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi and
Mandy Bloomfield, all deserve special mention alongside my supervisors
and examiners. Preparing this typescript was also very formative. Thank
you to Joseph Bristow, the anonymous reviewers, and the editorial team at
Palgrave Macmillan for making me a better scholar.
I would also like to thank those who contributed informal feedback on
this work. There are many who asked stimulating questions or provided
thoughtful comments at talks, conferences, and other events—far too
many to list entirely—but I would like to directly thank Paul Williams,
Corinna Wagner, Andy Brown, Matt Hayler, Vanessa Warne, Karen
Bourrier, Jennifer Esmail, Keir Waddington, Martin Willis, Sue Zemka,
James Mussell, Richard Salmon, Emma Curry, Helen Goodman, Regenia
Gagnier, John Plunkett, Heather Tilley, Tricia Zakreski, Joe Kember,
Claire Jones, Neil Pemberton, Andrew Mangham, Ruth Heholt, Clare
Stainthorp, Michelle Webb, and Joanne Parsons. To the many support
staff and librarians—particularly those at Exeter, Leeds, and the Wellcome
Library—whose tireless help and troubleshooting facilitated my research,
please accept my sincere thanks. Cathryn Baker, Morwenna Hussey, Claire
Keyte, and Pamela Rhodes, all deserve special mention.
The completion of this book owes much to the encouragement of a
wide network of academic friends, many of whom I mention above. As
someone from a working-class Cornish background, I was initially con-
cerned about how welcome I would feel within the academy, but this anxi-
ety was misplaced. I would like to thank all my close colleagues (past and
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
present) from Exeter, Bath Spa, Plymouth, Leeds, and Swansea. Special
thanks to my wonderful PhD peers, including Wei Hsien-Wan, Richard
Graham, Zoe Bullaitis, Sarah Jones, Simon Peplow, Lorna Peplow, Ed
Taylor, Mike Rose-Steel, Esther van Raamsdonk, Tom Chadwick, Eddie
Falvey, Fred Cooper, Isabel Galleymore, Phil Child, Georgina Hunter,
Jonathan Memel, Sophie David, Anna-Marie Linnell, Sarah Daw, Ryan
Patterson, Tara Etherington, James Parker, Joe Hickinbottom, George
Twigg, and Jasmine Hunter-Evans—we made it together! To these good
folks and everyone else who has brought happiness to my early career in
academia, I am eternally grateful.
Many thanks must also go to my parents. Though what we do for work
is very different, you have been nothing but encouraging and supportive.
Your faith in me has inspired perseverance. For the same reasons, I must
also thank my brothers (Glen and Marc), Nanny Sweet, my extended fam-
ily, and my future in-laws, Jane and Martin. For providing much-needed
distraction, companionship, and beer drinking, I would like to raise a glass
to my many other non-academic friends. Beadle, Pidge, Pat, Gary, Tim,
Chris, Lorie, Jessie, Anya, Sophie, Paul, and Neil: the next drink is on me!
Finally, I would like to thank Jen for her constant love, support, and
patience. I know that you do not “get” Victorian studies—using my copy
of The Way We Live Now as a coffee coaster was a giveaway—but I could
not have done this without you.
reuse of coPyrighted material
Parts of Chaps. 2 and 5 first appeared in a slightly different form in my
essay “Physical ‘Wholeness’ and ‘Incompleteness’ in Victorian Prosthesis
Narratives,” which was published in Clark Lawlor and Andrew Mangham’s
edited collection Literature and Medicine: The Nineteenth Century
(Cambridge University Press, 2021). This material is reproduced with
permission of the Licensor through PLSclear. It is in copyright. Subject to
statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing
agreements, no further reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
Figure 6.5, the cartoon “Retributive Justice” from Fun, vol. 29 (1879),
is reprinted with the permission of ProQuest. The image was produced by
ProQuest as part of British Periodicals (www.proquest.com).
Many thanks also to the Wellcome Collection for assigning Creative
Commons licences to all the other images that feature in this book.
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
Structure 8
Scope 10
Critical Contexts 15
Language 19
References 28
2 Constructing and Complicating Physical Wholeness 37
Cultivating Completeness 39
Theories of Body and Mind 40
Legal and Social Factors 46
Literatures of Loss 50
Persuasive Prosthetists 55
References 66
3 “The Infurnal Thing”: Autonomy and Ability in Narratives
of Disabling, Self-acting, and Weaponized Prostheses 73
Human-Machine Minds and Bodies 75
Productive Prostheses 79
Disabling Devices 84
Prostheses as Weapons 89
Self-acting Prostheses 98
References 118
xi