Book chapter
Growing Old: Age
A New Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture, pp.97-109
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
03/07/2014
DOI: 10.1002/9781118624432.ch7
Abstract
Of the many literary works that contemplate old age, one is particularly attentive to Victorian debates about the place of the elderly in society. A witty satire, The Fixed Period (1882) succinctly summarizes growing Victorian concern over what was falsely perceived to be an increasing “aged” population in an era obsessed with youth, energy, activity, and progress. One of the most enduring fantasies about old age – it survives among us even today – focuses on the supposed reverence for elderly people in an imagined past. The large population of elderly poor in the cities created an indelible impression in the public imagination that workhouses largely served (and abused) older people. The greatest achievement of nineteenth‐century researchers may have been paving the way for the formal establishment of geriatrics and gerontology in the early twentieth century.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Growing Old: Age
- Creators
- Teresa Mangum
- Contributors
- Herbert F Tucker (Editor)
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Publication Details
- A New Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture, pp.97-109
- DOI
- 10.1002/9781118624432.ch7
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; Oxford, UK
- Number of pages
- 13
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 03/07/2014
- Academic Unit
- International Programs; Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies; English; Public Policy Center (Archive); Obermann Center for Advanced Studies
- Record Identifier
- 9984271967602771
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