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Thesis ID: CBB001562752

Drop Dead Gorgeous: The Feminization and Idealization of Tuberculosis in England, 1780--1850 (2010)

Day, Carolyn A. (Author)

Tulane University

Publication Date: 2010
Physical Details: 454 pp.
Language: English

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This study discusses the social space occupied by tuberculosis during the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century, as well as its reciprocal impact on both the individual and the social body. It focuses on the radical changes in the perception of the disease between 1780 and 1850 and how they fit with the shifting concepts of disease causation. These changes allowed tuberculosis to become tightly bound with contemporary concepts of beauty, which were prominent in the fashions of the day. The rise of "civilized" nervous diseases and the elevation of sensibility were entwined with hereditary explanations of consumption to advance it as a disease signifying sophistication in the upper reaches of society. Consequently, there was an explanative split along class lines. Tuberculosis was seen as a product of vice and filth among the lower classes of society and as a sign of refinement and attractiveness among the middle and upper classes. The mythology surrounding the disease continued to draw on earlier notions that associated tuberculosis with a good and easy death, but these concepts were refashioned with the aid of evangelical Christianity, Romantic rhetoric, and sentimental doctrine. As a result of this co-mingling, consumption provided an avenue for the elevation of the respectable woman both spiritually and aesthetically. The physical manifestations of tuberculosis, its chronic nature, and the widespread belief in its incurability also contributed to linking the disease to contemporary concepts of beauty. Through a detailed analysis of social trends, medical advice, and fashionable culture--revealed in medical works, periodicals, literature, and personal papers--I reveal the intimate relationships between fashionable women's clothing, female roles, beauty, and illness in Britain in this period.

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Description Cited in ProQuest Diss. & Thes. : doc. no. 3424427.

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