Sleep Fictions: Rest and Its Deprivations in Progressive-Era Literature
The literary response to the dawning cult of wakefulness

A turn-of-the-century influx of new technologies and the enormous impact of the electric light transformed not only individual sleeping habits but the ways American culture conceived and valued sleep. Hannah L. Huber analyzes the works of Henry James, Edith Wharton, Charles Chesnutt, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman to examine the literary response to the period’s obsession with wakefulness. As these writers blurred the separation of public and private space, their characters faced exhaustion in a modern world that permeated every moment of their lives with artificial light, traffic noise, and the social pressure to remain active at all hours. The implacable cultural clock and constant stress over physical limitations had an even greater impact on marginalized figures. Huber pays particular attention to how these writers rebutted Americans’ confidence in the body’s ability to conquer sleep with vivid portraits of the devastating consequences of sleep disruption and deprivation.

The author also provides a website and text visualization tool that offers readers an interdisciplinary, deconstructed analysis of the book’s primary texts. The website can be found at: https://sleepfictions.org/sleep/scalar/index

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Sleep Fictions: Rest and Its Deprivations in Progressive-Era Literature
The literary response to the dawning cult of wakefulness

A turn-of-the-century influx of new technologies and the enormous impact of the electric light transformed not only individual sleeping habits but the ways American culture conceived and valued sleep. Hannah L. Huber analyzes the works of Henry James, Edith Wharton, Charles Chesnutt, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman to examine the literary response to the period’s obsession with wakefulness. As these writers blurred the separation of public and private space, their characters faced exhaustion in a modern world that permeated every moment of their lives with artificial light, traffic noise, and the social pressure to remain active at all hours. The implacable cultural clock and constant stress over physical limitations had an even greater impact on marginalized figures. Huber pays particular attention to how these writers rebutted Americans’ confidence in the body’s ability to conquer sleep with vivid portraits of the devastating consequences of sleep disruption and deprivation.

The author also provides a website and text visualization tool that offers readers an interdisciplinary, deconstructed analysis of the book’s primary texts. The website can be found at: https://sleepfictions.org/sleep/scalar/index

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Sleep Fictions: Rest and Its Deprivations in Progressive-Era Literature

Sleep Fictions: Rest and Its Deprivations in Progressive-Era Literature

by Hannah L. Huber
Sleep Fictions: Rest and Its Deprivations in Progressive-Era Literature
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Sleep Fictions: Rest and Its Deprivations in Progressive-Era Literature

Sleep Fictions: Rest and Its Deprivations in Progressive-Era Literature

by Hannah L. Huber

Overview

The literary response to the dawning cult of wakefulness

A turn-of-the-century influx of new technologies and the enormous impact of the electric light transformed not only individual sleeping habits but the ways American culture conceived and valued sleep. Hannah L. Huber analyzes the works of Henry James, Edith Wharton, Charles Chesnutt, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman to examine the literary response to the period’s obsession with wakefulness. As these writers blurred the separation of public and private space, their characters faced exhaustion in a modern world that permeated every moment of their lives with artificial light, traffic noise, and the social pressure to remain active at all hours. The implacable cultural clock and constant stress over physical limitations had an even greater impact on marginalized figures. Huber pays particular attention to how these writers rebutted Americans’ confidence in the body’s ability to conquer sleep with vivid portraits of the devastating consequences of sleep disruption and deprivation.

The author also provides a website and text visualization tool that offers readers an interdisciplinary, deconstructed analysis of the book’s primary texts. The website can be found at: https://sleepfictions.org/sleep/scalar/index

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780252045400
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Publication date: 11/21/2023
Series: Topics in the Digital Humanities
Edition description: First Edition
Pages: 200
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Hannah L. Huber is an adjunct professor of English and the Digital Technology Leader and Project Administrator for the Center for Southern Studies at The University of the South.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction    From Mystery to Medicine: Diagnosing Sleep in American Literature

  1. “The Most Restless of Mortals”: Patronage and Somnambulism in Henry James’s Roderick Hudson
  2. “A Monst’us Pow’ful Sleeper”: Resisting the Master Clock in Charles Chesnutt’s “Uncle Julius” Tales
  3. “A Great Blaze of Electric Light”: Illuminating Sleeplessness in Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth
  4. “Rest and Power”: The Social Currency of Sleep in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Forerunner
Conclusion

Notes

References

Index

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Related Subjects

Literature
Literary Criticism
General & Miscellaneous Literary Criticism
Modern Literature
Literature, Modern->20th century->History and criticism
Literature
Literary Criticism
General & Miscellaneous Literary Criticism
Modern Literature
Literature, Modern->20th century->History and criticism

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