Severed heads and martyred souls : crime and capital punishment in French romantic literature /
Laura Poulosky
- 223 pages
"Severed Heads and Martyred Souls examines the Romantics' obsession with capital punishment, analyzing its literary treatment in texts by Hugo, Lamartine, Eugene Sue, Dumas the elder, Vigny, Balzac, Stendhal, and Nodier.The book explores the effects of death sentences on character and plot development, the language of the texts, and the overt or implicit moral and political messages of each author, and successfully demonstrates that reflecting upon the French Romantics' treatment of capital punishment is both important to understanding the Romantic movement, and instructive for current debate on the issue of capital punishment."--BOOK JACKET.
9780820463537 0820463531
French literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism. Romanticism -- France. Capital punishment in literature. Capital punishment in literature French literature History and criticism Romanticism French literature, history and criticism, 19th century