%0 Book
%A Beatrice Laurent
%D 2014
%C Oxford, United Kingdom
%I Peter Lang Verlag
%@ 9783035306606
%T Sleeping Beauties in Victorian Britain
%B Cultural, Literary and Artistic Explorations of a Myth
%R 10.3726/978-3-0353-0660-6
%U https://www.peterlang.com/document/1053315
%X Artists, scientists and the wider public of the Victorian era all seem to have shared a common interest in the myth of the Briar Rose and its contemporary implications, from the Pre-Raphaelites and late Victorian aesthetes to the fascinated crowds who visited Ellen Sadler, the real-life ‘Sleeping Maid’ who is reported to have slept from 1871 to 1880.  The figure of the beautiful reclining female sleeper is a recurring theme in the Victorian imagination, invoking visual, literary and erotic connotations that contribute to a complex range of readings involving aesthetics, gender definitions and contemporary medical opinion. This book compiles and examines a corpus of Sleeping Beauties drawn from Victorian medical reports, literature and the arts and explores the significance of the enduring revival of the myth.
%K recurring theme, aesthetics, medical opinion
%G English