"With My Hair in Crystal": Mourning Clarissa

    Authors

    K. M. Oliver

    Comments

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    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

    Language

    English

    First Page

    35

    Last Page

    60

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000283890900002

    ISSN

    0840-6286

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