Madness and the Romantic poet : a critical history / James Whitehead.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whitehead, James (Writer on romanticism), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Romanticism--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Romanticism.

Literature and mental illness--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Literature and mental illness.

English poetry--19th century--Appreciation.

English poetry.

History.

Great Britain--Intellectual life--19th century.

Great Britain.

Intellectual life.

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

Physical Description:

xi, 304 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2017.

Summary:

"Madness and the Romantic Poet examines the longstanding and enduringly popular idea that poetry is connected to madness and mental illness. The idea goes back to classical antiquity, but it was given new life at the turn of the nineteenth century. The book offers a new and much more complete history of its development than has previously been attempted, alongside important associated ideas about individual genius, creativity, the emotions, rationality, and the mind in extreme states or disorder--ideas that have been pervasive in modern popular culture. More specifically, the book tells the story of the initial growth and wider dissemination of the idea of the 'Romantic mad poet' in the nineteenth century, how (and why) this idea became so popular, and how it interacted with the very different fortunes in reception and reputation of Romantic poets, their poetry, and attacks on or defences of Romanticism as a cultural trend generally--again leaving a popular legacy that endured into the twentieth century. Material covered includes nineteenth-century journalism, early literary criticism, biography, medical and psychiatric literature, and poetry. A wide range of scientific (and pseudoscientific) thinkers are discussed alongside major Romantic authors, including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Hazlitt, Lamb, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Keats, Byron, and John Clare. Using this array of sources and figures, the book asks: was the Romantic mad genius just a sentimental stereotype or a romantic myth? Or does its long popularity tell us something about Romanticism and the role it has played, or has been given, in modern culture?"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 'A Precarious Gift': Classical Traditions and Their Romantic Reception 29

2 'On the Giddy Brink': Eighteenth-Century Prospects 51

3 Alienism: Mad-Doctoring and the Mad Poet 72

4 Balaam and Bedlam: Romantic Reviewers and the Rhetoric of Insanity 98

5 Cases of Poetry: Romantic Biographers and the Origins of Psychobiography 127

6 Creativity, Genius, and Madness: A Scientific Debate and its Romantic Origins 155

7 Madness Writing Poetry/Poetry Writing Madness 178

8 Conclusion: Madness, Modernity, and Romanticism 204.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-292) and index.

ISBN:

9780198733706

0198733704

OCLC:

970607344