《Svengali's Web》是2000年Yale University Press出版社出版的圖書，作者是Pick,Daniel。
基本介紹
- 中文名：Svengali's Web
- 外文名：The Alien Enchanter in Modern Culture
- 作者：Pick,Daniel
- 出版社：Yale University Press
基本信息,內容簡介,
基本信息
副標題: The Alien Enchanter in Modern Culture
作者: Pick,Daniel
出版社: Yale University Press
出版年: 2000-5
頁數: 290
內容簡介
Svengali, the malevolent hypnotist in Trilby, a sensationally successful novel published by George du Maurier in 1894, became such a well-known character in the culture of the period that his name entered the dictionary as one who exerts a malign persuasiveness on another.
This book explores the origins and impact of Svengali and his helplessly mesmerised female victim Trilby in an age already rife with discussions of race, influence, and the unconscious mind. Daniel Pick points out that Svengali was a Jew as well as a dangerous hypnotist; his depiction struck a chord not only with pervasive nineteenth-century forebodings about irrational interpersonal forces and psychic contacts but also with prevalent anti-Semitic assumptions. He shows how Svengali became the quintessential dark hypnotist of the fin de sihcle, whose image was recycled in pictures, drama, verse, and films.
Pick not only discusses the work of mesmerists, hypnotists, and critics of entrancement but also relates tales of surrogate passion and psychological foreboding that feature opera singer Jenny Lind, composer Richard Wagner, politician Benjamin Disreali, novelist Henry James and others. The book identifies and illuminates a psychological and historical preoccupation a cluster of Victorian ideas and images, fears and fantasies of psychic invasion and racial hypnosis that crystallised in the figure and phenomenon of Svengali.
