Title

"With My Hair in Crystal": Mourning Clarissa

Authors

Authors

K. M. Oliver

Comments

Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

Abbreviated Journal Title

Eighteenth-Century Fict.

Keywords

Literature

Abstract

This essay explores the fetishism of mourning and mourning jewellery as fetish in Samuel Richardson's Clarissa. Following some historical background on mourning jewellery fashioned with human hair and a definition of fetishism as it relates to mourning jewellery, I discuss Clarissa herself as fetish. I also examine Clarissa's bequests of mourning jewellery by exploring how these fetishized bequests offer psychic compensation to the wearers, allow access to the virtues associated with Clarissa, and assure remembrance of the dead. Finally, I argue for the centrality of mourning to the realization of Richardson's moral, didactic, and aesthetic intent.

Journal Title

Eighteenth-Century Fiction

Volume

23

Issue/Number

1

Publication Date

1-1-2010

Document Type

Article

DOI Link

http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/ecf.23.1.35

Language

English

First Page

35

Last Page

60

WOS Identifier

WOS:000283890900002

ISSN

0840-6286

Recommended Citation

""With My Hair in Crystal": Mourning Clarissa" (2010). Faculty Bibliography 2010s. 607.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/facultybib2010/607