Lord Byron and the Quest for Affirmation : A New Disabilities Studies Critique

ISBN-13: 9783639170160 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 116 str.

Mark William Westmoreland

Opis

With the rise of New Disability Studies, literary scholars are continually reevaluating works by disabled writers such as Lord Byron, who possessed a club-foot. Some scholars, in addition to reevaluating Byron s work, emphasize the legacy that rests upon both his notorious lifestyle and his extraordinary ability as a prolific writer. Unfortunately, his lifestyle, and not his writing, typically becomes the primary focus of too many critics who ignore the value of New Disability Studies. And yet, Byron s struggle with disability and his consequent quest for affirmation laid the foundation to make Byron s work exceptional and explain why he continues to be studied as a prominent literary genius. This book demonstrates that disability inflects Byron s poetry to a greater extent than Byron scholarship has hitherto acknowledged. Furthermore, LORD BYRON AND THE QUEST FOR AFFIRMATION will focus on and engage with the hidden implications of disability in Byron s Manfred and Cain and the explicit use of disability in The Deformed Transformed while also examining Byron s Calvinistic perspective of disability.

O autorze

Mark William Westmoreland teaches Philosophy at Penn State-
Brandywine and Neumann College, both of which are located in the
suburbs of Philadelphia, PA. His research interests, in
addition to British and German Romanticism, include Continental
Philosophy, Race Theory, and Philosophy of History and Culture.