Liverpool University Press Bewilderments of Vision: Hallucination and Literature, 1880-1914

According to Oscar Wilde, the primary aim of the critic is to see the object as in itself it really is not'. Through a series of close and often unusual readings, this book endeavours to develop Wilde's remark into a detailed and creative theory of reading. Or perhaps that should be misreading: for, as this experimental work of criticism negotiates its way among the works of a number of late-nineteenth-century writers, particularly Robert Louis Stevenson and Wilde himself, Tearle uncovers some of the ways in which we as readers are prone to hallucinations while reading about, of all things, the experience of hallucination. Focusing in detail on a series of neologisms from writing of the period, such as 'handconscience', 'figmentary', and 'aftersense', and moving between a number of disciplines including literature, criticism, science, psychoanalysis, and even linguistics, Bewilderments of Vision endeavours to answer a number of questions, ranging from the urgent to the downright bizarre: What is the link between hallucination and social conscience in writing of the late-nineteenth century? Is there such a thing as textual hallucination? Why does the author of this book see a 'snake' that is not there when he 'reads' Jekyll and Hyde? Review "Spectral fiction has long known the blurred line between dream and waking, the subjective and the objective. In this book Tearle offers an exploration of these themes and shows how psychical research had an impact on the writers of the era. It may well be the final word on the topic that should be included in classrooms as essential reading." --Gary William Crawford, editor, Le Fanu Studies and the Gothic Press From the Back Cover 'This wonderful book makes superbly detailed rhetorical readings of five late nineteenth and early twentieth-century “ghost stories,” one each by Robert Louis Stevenson, Vernon Lee, Henry James, Arthur Machen, and Oliver Onions. The readings are made in the context of impressively learned accounts of other writings by these authors, of other ghost stories, and of the historical context, for example the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Tearle’s Bewilderments of Vision shows that these five tales are not so much ghost stories as fictions about hallucinations or, more precisely, subtle representations of the wide-spread “bewilderment” at that time about whether apparitions are real (ghosts) or psychic projections (hallucinations in one sense of the word). A distinguished book in every way.' - J. Hillis Miller, Research Professor, University of California at Irvine “Spectral fiction has long known the blurred line between dream and waking, the subjective and the objective. In this book Tearle offers an exploration of these themes and shows how psychical research had an impact on the writers of the era. It may well be the final word on the topic that should be included in classrooms as essential reading.” Gary William Crawford, editor of Le Fanu Studies and the Gothic Press Hallucination was always the ghost story’s elephant in the room. Even before the vogue for psychical research and spiritualism began to influence writers at the end of the nineteenth century, tales of horror and the supernatural, of ghosts and demons, had been haunted by the possibility of some grand deception by the senses. But what is certainly true is that, during the nineteenth century, hallucination took on a new force and significance not just in ghost stories and horror fiction, but in other forms of writing. Authors began to encourage their readers to assess whether the ghostly had its origins in some supernatural phenomenon from beyond the grave, or from some deception within our own minds. This wide-ranging book explores the many factors which contributed to this rise in the interest in hallucination and visionary experience, during the nineteenth century and beyond. Through a series of close and often unusual readings of numer