Inspiration and Insanity in British Poetry

1825–1855

von Joseph Crawford

248 Seiten, Taschenbuch

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

This book explores the ways in which poetic inspiration came to be associated with madness in early nineteenth-century Britain. By examining the works of poets such as Barrett, Browning, Clare, Tennyson, Townshend, and the Spasmodics in relation to the burgeoning asylum system and shifting medical discourses of the period, it investigates the ways in which Britain’s post-Romantic poets understood their own poetic vocations within a cultural context that insistently linked poetic talent with illness and insanity. Joseph Crawford examines the popularity of mesmerism among the writers of the era, as an alternative system of medicine that provided a more sympathetic account of the nature of poetic genius, and investigates the persistent tension, found throughout the literary and medical writings of the period, between the Romantic ideal of the poet as a transcendent visionary genius and the ‘medico-psychological’ conception of poets as mere case studies in abnormal neurological development.

• Reihe: Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine
• Themen: Biographie, Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft Geschichte und Kritik Literaturwissenschaft, allgemein 1800 bis 1900
• ISBN: 9783030216733
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 14.08.2020
• Größe: 21 x 14.8 cm
• Verlag: Springer International Publishing