Romanticism, Medicine, and the Poet's Body

ISBN-13: 9781138269316 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 174 str.

James Robert Allard

Opis

James Allard's book restores the physical body to its proper place in Romantic studies by exploring the status of the human body during the stunning historical moment that witnessed the emergence of Romantic literature alongside the professionalization of medical practice. His central subject is the Poet-Physician, a hybrid figure in the works of the medically trained Keats, Thelwall, and Beddoes, who embodies the struggles over discrepancies and affinities between medicine and poetry.

Recenzje

'James Allard teaches readers to be alert to body language and the insistent presence of the body informing thought and word choice, not just in the moment of ache or pain, but in every act of perception and response an author attempts to record. His analysis of Wordsworth as poet of this "mighty world of eye and ear" is rich in new insights, and he reveals the extensive medical awareness that informs Joanna Baillie's Plays on the Passions, Thelwall's radical vitalism and vital radicalism, Keats's physical self-reflexivity, and Beddoes's tragicomic drama of death and godless resurrection.' Frederick Burwick, University of California, Los Angeles, USA 'Romanticism, Medicine, and the Poet's Body makes a significant contribution to Romantic-era cultural history and '"body studies", elucidating the problems of authority and anxiety in the way bodies are imagined in Romantic writing. Rigorously grounded in medical and scientific history, while also making space for the interpretation of literary style, Allard's book must become a key text for understanding that distinctively Romantic amalgam the "Poet-Physician".' Michael Bradshaw, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK ’... a rich and diverse book.’ European Romantic Review ’... carefully researched and closely reasoned... It joins a number of recent, important works in giving us a Romanticism that is fully informed by the best medical and scientific thinking of its time, and which thus expresses, rather than simply transcending, the conflicts and contradictions of embodied experience.’ European Legacy

Spis treści

General Editors’ Preface, Vincent Newey, Joanne Shattock; Introduction: Bodytalk, James Robert Allard; Part 1 Romantic(izing) Bodies, James Robert Allard; Chapter 1 Body Conscious, James Robert Allard; Chapter 2 “Flesh and Blood”, James Robert Allard; Part 2 Embodying Romanticism(s), James Robert Allard; Chapter 3 “Great Vital Organs”, James Robert Allard; Chapter 4 “Shap’d and Palpable”, James Robert Allard; Chapter 5 “The Body’s Laws”, James Robert Allard; Part 3 Coda, James Robert Allard; Chapter 102 Apollo’s Poets, James Robert Allard;

O autorze

James Robert Allard is Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Brock University, Canada.