Inspiration and Insanity in British Poetry: 1825–1855

Description

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. Front Matter ....Pages i-vii Introduction (Joseph Crawford)....Pages 1-8 ‘He was not one of ye’: Poetry and Mental Peculiarity, 1825–1836 (Joseph Crawford)....Pages 9-57 ‘Ah! let me not be fool’d’: Delusion and Inspiration in the Poems of Browning and Tennyson, 1832–1840 (Joseph Crawford)....Pages 59-105 Sir William’s Last Stand: Poetry and Insanity in England, 1837–1842 (Joseph Crawford)....Pages 107-148 Seeing Things: Mesmerism, Spiritualism, and Romantic Poetry, 1836–1855 (Joseph Crawford)....Pages 149-196 ‘The Madness’: Inspiration and Insanity in Spasmodic Poetry, 1851–1855 (Joseph Crawford)....Pages 197-236 Epilogue: ‘It is strange.’ (Joseph Crawford)....Pages 237-242 Back Matter ....Pages 243-248