ENG40290 Mind and Body in Modern Literature
Some ways of thinking become so influential that they infiltrate everyday discourse, and come to be perceived as ‘truths.’ One common example of this is the way in which Freudian thought has mutated into pop-psychology, where a particular interpretation of behaviour is shared by many and perceived to be insightful and correct. One of the ways in which we can investigate how discourses are shaped by ideas current in their time is to examine how pre-twentieth-century modes of thought were influenced by ideas which were circulating in earlier times, and which we might now dismiss as ill-informed and inaccurate.
The aim of this module is to explore how literary writers were influenced by such discourses, and how they shaped their literary practices accordingly. As a counter to present-day psychoanalytic readings of texts, we will explore how earlier understandings of mental processes influenced writers from the eighteenth century to the turn of the twentieth century. We will begin with the concept of sensibility, which conflates sensitivity of body and mind, and will move through the nineteenth century, where the development of neuroscience provoked debates on materialism. The focus will be on the relationship between mind and body, and how thought-processes and emotions are represented by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers in literature. Students will also be given the opportunity to reassess twentieth-century approaches to literature in the context of the earlier works.
Preliminary Booklist:
Joanna Baillie, Plays on the Passions (Broadview)
William Godwin, Fleetwood (Broadview)
George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (Oxford)
Henry Mackenzie, The Man of Feeling (Broadview)
Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Broadview)
Wilkie Collins, Heart and Science (Broadview)
