期刊名称：Illumine: Journal of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society Graduate Students Association
印刷版ISSN：1712-5634
出版年度：2012
卷号：11
期号：1
页码：6-25
语种：English
出版社：University of Victoria
摘要：Using the publication of Elizabeth Gaskell’s “The Old Nurse’s Story” in the 1852 Christmas number of Dickens’s Household Words as a case study, this paper examines how the publication of Victorian ghost stories in Christmas numbers redefines the ghost story, transforming it from a modern text participating in contemporary debates on spiritualism into a social text participating in the broader cultural project of reaffirming the nation’s (religious) traditions in the face of (secular) modernity. While the themes of Christmas ghost stories explicitly address social issues and secular, middle-class cultural values, the morals and social traditions promoted by Christmas fiction cannot exist outside of the era’s contemporary conversations about the place of religion in a modern, industrial society. The ghosts and goblins of Dickens’s Christmas fiction address and attempt to correct the social ills of modern society through a secularised application of Christian values and behaviours.
关键词：Cultural Studies; Religious Studies; Political Science; Visual Studies; Interdisciplinary Studies; Fine Art; Social Science; Humanities;Victorian literature; Elizabeth Gaskell; Gaskell; Dickens; Charles Dickens; Christmas; fiction; spiritualism; ghost story; Household Words;religion; society; culture; Illumine; CSRS; UVic; University of Victoria; Centre for Studies in Religion and Society
