NOSTALGIA AND PERVERSION IN NEO-VICTORIAN NARRATIVES.

While the link between nostalgia and neo-Victorian interest in the nineteenth century has been much discussed and largely acknowledged in neo-Victorian scholarship, the precise nature of this association, its ideological implications, and, most of all, critical interpretations of individual instances of these nostalgic revisitations remain multifaceted, complex, and often contentious. Readings of neo-Victorian texts as cultural memory artefacts or instances of Svetlana Boym's reflective nostalgia are certainly valid, yet these approaches do not account for a specific brand of neo-Victorian narratives which Marie-Louise Kohlke describes as "reading for defilement": a clear insistence on imagining the Victorian age as a den of depravity, rife with shocking obscenities and even more shocking crime, as the Victorian past is posited as a fetishised playground for deviance and voyeurism, often relying on Gothic tropes. This fascination with imagined Victorian filth is particularly interesting when considered in light of the global sway towards conservative politics. The neo-Victorian setting has also been approached through the theoretical lens of John Urry's "tourist gaze", as an environment offering "out-of-the-ordinary" experiences for nostalgic consumption. This paper will therefore seek to contribute to this ongoing critical debate by exploring the various facets of nostalgia in this subset of neo-Victorian narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]