Imagining the Prison: Literary Representations and the Development of Modern Penality in England

Abstract

This thesis examines the cultural context in which prisons emerged as the mainstay of modern penality. In broad terms, it analyses the role various literary texts played in promoting, representing and responding to key developments in the English penal system from the mid-eighteenth to the early twentieth century. More specifically, it charts the contours of the prison metaphor as contemporary novelists, poets, playwrights and biographers employed it over this period. In doing so, it suggests that the literature of the prison can be seen as a particular way of 'imagining' this institution and the way in which it became possible to think about it. Moreover, the thesis argues that literary representations of the prison played a significant role in shaping public opinion about what constituted adequate punishment and appropriate prison regimes. Literary representations did so because various ways of thinking about the possibilities for a modern prison were intimately tied to its development. However, not only did literary narratives help to shape contemporary prison debate, they were also reflections of such penal discourse and discussion. Many authors mastered the key elements of contemporary penal debate and subsequently depicted their views in their literary work. This study, therefore, offers fresh insights into the development of the English prison system and reveals the way literati interacted with politics and institutions in shaping, disputing and reshaping Victorian prison policy.