3 Review(s)

A great deal of Victorian literature recycles themes, images, and language from apocalyptic literature, in what might be described as an affinity with the genre. With this affinity in mind, "Approaching Apocalypse" examines certain structuring oppositions that shape apocalyptic literature, and sets out to decode their significance for Victorian writing. They are: human/inhuman, desert/city, veiled/revealed, time/eternal, and this world/other world. The five main chapters of the book each deal with one of these opposites, reading a wide range of Victorian texts, including novels, poems, plays, sermons, and other less easily categorized texts. At the heart of each chapter is an extended reading of one or two texts selected for their particularly telling insights into the relationship between Victorian writing and the "Book of Revelation".