In this provocative and original study, Alan Richardson examines an entire range of intellectual, cultural, and ideological points of contact between British Romantic literary writing and the pioneering brain science of the time. Richardson breaks new ground in two fields, revealing a significant and undervalued facet of British Romanticism while demonstrating the 'Romantic' character of early neuroscience. Crucial notions like the active mind, organicism, the unconscious, the fragmented subject, instinct and intuition, arising simultaneously within the literature and psychology of the era, take on unsuspected valences that transform conventional accounts of Romantic cultural history. Neglected issues like the corporeality of mind, the role of non-linguistic communication, and the peculiarly Romantic understanding of cultural universals are reopened in discussions that bring new light to bear on long-standing critical puzzles, from Coleridge's suppression of 'Kubla Khan', to Wordsworth's perplexing theory of poetic language, to Austen's interest in head injury.

Examines the affinities between the British Romantic movement and the early history of neuroscience.

About the Author
Alan Richardson is Professor of English at Boston College.

Reviews
'... exciting work ...' Journal of Consciousness Studies
'In his extensively researched book, Alan Richardson presents the reader with a new approach to reading British Romantic literature ... offers an illuminating approach to scholarship and also to some literary texts in British Romanticism while at the same time contributing to the developing field of cognitive historicism.' Poetics Today
'British Romanticism and the Science of the Mind will shape future studies of the cultural impact of medicine on nineteenth-century literature. The Romantic discovery of the 'brain' is a remarkable story, richly recounted in this study, one to which we will be frequently returning in the future.' Romanticism



Book Information
ISBN 9780521020404
Author Alan Richardson
Format Paperback
Page Count 268
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 390g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 15mm