Introduction The Cultural Trope of Sensationalism

Abstract

The word “sensational” appears several times in the monthly periodical magazine Belgravia in the period between 1867 and 1876 when it was “conducted” by the popular author of sensation novels Mary Elizabeth Braddon. In an article on furs, published in 1871, “sensational” refers to a most precious and new kind of fur coat available in stores. In another one, describing the unraveling of the mysteries of a modern factory, the term underlines the excitement for the discovery of the secret behind the production process. India ale is advertised as “sensational” in the November 1872 issue, while in the historical novel Bound to John Company serialized in the magazine the term anticipates the tortures the young protagonist may be subject to in eighteenth-century India, during the British war effort of 1756–63. The semantic field of this word encompasses, therefore, several aspects of modern culture: the thrill created by the overflow of new commodities such as fur and ale, the introduction of new knowledge about the hidden workings of industrialization, and the history of the British expansion in India. In these three instances, however, the term “sensationa,” and the suspended excitement that comes with it, affects the perception of the readers in different ways: it moves from a passing reference to a product, like in the case of ale and furs, to a more complex effect that defines a specific narrative strategy, like in the case of the visit to a factory and in the novel on the British expansion in India.

Rather than asking, “What is the attitude of a work to the relations of production of its time?” I would ask, “What is its position in them?” This question directly concerns the function the work has within the literary relations of production of its time. It is connected, in other words, directly with the literary technique of works.

—Walter Benjamin, The Author as Producer, Address at the Institute for the Study of Fascism, Paris, April 27, 1934