Death, Sickness, and Plagues in 19th-century British Literature (Panel)

NeMLA 2022




The Year Without a Summer in Europe was among the reasons that inspired some nineteenth-century British writers to write novels and poems reflecting on the event and its effects on human relations. Works like Mary Shelley’s The Last Man and Lord Byron’s Darkness are among the examples that describe the feelings resulting from such an event, especially in Shelley’s work, in which many racial and political issues arise from such a crisis. How human beings care about each other in crises and what dilemmas result from such events are the focus of this session, as these issues are closely related to the most recent COVID-19 crisis. The session welcomes papers that address the 2022 NeMLA conference theme “Care” from different approaches and perspectives related to nineteenth-century British literature. Of particular interest are papers that engage with topics including but not limited to the representation of different races in the writing of the era, the relationship between sickness and the Other, death, apocalypse, and plagues.