Mesmerism, Medusa, and the muse : the romantic discourse of spontaneous creativity / Anne DeLong.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

DeLong, Anne, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Mesmerism in literature.

Medusa (Gorgon)--In literature.

Medusa.

Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.).

Romanticism--Great Britain.

Romanticism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (179 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Lanham, Maryland : Lexington Books, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Mesmerism, Medusa, and the Muse: The Romantic Discourse of Spontaneous Creativity explores the connections among the Romantic discourse of spontaneous literary creativity, the nineteenth-century cultural practice of mesmerism, and the mythical Medusa. This analysis of Medusan mesmerism in the works of Mary Robinson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, and Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L.E.L.) contributes to recent scholarship about improvisational poetics, the subversive potential of mesmerism, and Medusa as a fem

Contents:

MESMERISM, MEDUSA, AND THE MUSE; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction Opium Dreams: Romantic Poetry and Spontaneous Creativity; Chapter One Romantic Improvisation: The Discourse of Spontaneity and the Anxiety of Inspiration; Chapter Two Animal Magnetism: Mesmerism in the Shelley Circle; Chapter Three Mesmeric Muses: Galvanic Maniacs and Somnambulant Zombies; Chapter Four The Medusan Muse: Speaking Eyes and Snaking Veins; Chapter Five The Gazing Eye, the Speaking I, and the Assenting Ay; Bibliography; Index; About the Author

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

979-82-16-30012-0

0-7391-7044-9

OCLC:

875098852