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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Hypnosis, Animal Magnetism, and Monstrosity in late Nineteenth Century English Literature

subject

description

We will explore the literary image of animal magnetism and hypnosis through the analysis of two works of fiction: the novels Richard Marsh’s The Beetle: A Mystery (1897) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). During all the 19th century and mainly at its last, many authors used animal magnetism and hypnosis in their fictional creations in an environmental or plot way, so much that Arthur Quiller-Couch, an important literary critic of the nineteenth century, spoke about the emergence of a new literary subgenre that he called “hypnotic fiction”. Starting from the idea that in this mesmeric and hypnotic fiction literature you can clearly trace differentiated stereotypes of magnetizers and hypnotists (some of them more classic than others) which perform a diverse and even antagonistic use of animal magnetism and hypnosis, we will show the relationship of this knowledge with the figure of the monster in the creations of Richard Marsh and Bram Stoker and how these cannot be reduced to the stereotype of a villain magnetizer/ hypnotist, as mesmeric and hypnotic powers work here as aggregates to conform the monstrosity of the character.