Download or read book Dream Creativity and Madness in Nineteenth Century France written by Tony James and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 1995-12-28 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an important new analysis of the problematic relationship between dreams and madness as perceived by nineteenth-century French writers, thinkers, and doctors. Those wishing to know the nature of madness, wrote Voltaire, should observe their dreams. The relationship between the dream-state and madness is a key theme of nineteenth-century European, and specifically French, thought. The meaning of dreams and associated phenomena such as somnambulism, ecstasy, and hallucinations (including those induced by hashish) preoccupied writers, philosophers, and psychiatrists. In this path-breaking cross-disciplinary study, Tony James shows how doctors (such as Esquirol, Lélut, and Janet), thinkers (including Maine de Biran and Taine), and writers (for example, Balzac, Nerval, Baudelaire, Victor Hugo, and Rimbaud) grappled in very different ways with the problems raised by the so-called 'phenomena of sleep'. Were historical figures such as Socrates or Pascal in fact mad? Might dream be a source of creativity, rather than a merely subsidiary, 'automatic' function? What of lucid dreaming? By exploring these questions, Dreams, Madness, and Creativity in Nineteenth-Century France makes good a considerable gap in the history of pre-Freudian psychology and sheds new and fascinating light on the central French writers of the period.

Download or read book Medievalism and the Quest for the Real Middle Ages written by Clare A. Simmons and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medievalism, the later reception of the Middle Ages, has been used by many writers, not just during the Victorian period but from the Renaissance to the present, as a means of commenting on their own societies and systems of values. Until recently, this self-interest was used to distinguish between Medievalism, a selective, often romanticised, view of the past, and medieval studies, with its quest for an authentic Middle Ages. The essays in this collection suggest that the search for knowledge of a "real" Middle Ages has always been a problematic one, and that the vitality of the vision of Medievalism is demonstrated by its constant adaption to current concerns.

Download or read book Scanning the Hypnoglyph written by Nathaniel Wallace and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-09-07 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nathaniel Wallace’s Scanning the Hypnoglyph chronicles a contemporary genre that exploits sleep’s evocative dimensions. While dreams, sleeping nudes, and other facets of the dormant state were popular with artists of the early twentieth century (and long before), sleep experiences have given rise to an even wider range of postmodern artwork. Scanning the Hypnoglyph first assesses the modernist framework wherein the sleeping subject typically enjoys firm psychic grounding. As postmodernism begins, subjective space is fragmented, the representation of sleep reflecting the trend. Among other topics, this book demonstrates how portrayals of dormant individuals can reveal imprints of the self. Gender issues are taken up as well. “Mainstream,” heterosexual representations are considered along with depictions of gay, lesbian, and androgynous sleepers.

Download or read book Madness and the Romantic Poet written by James Whitehead and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-21 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 serious about Romanticism and the role it has played, or has been given, in modern culture?

Download or read book Popular Literature Authorship and the Occult in Late Victorian Britain written by Andrew McCann and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-17 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the representation of the occult in late-Victorian popular fiction, exploring different perceptions of authorship and creativity.

Download or read book The Mysterious Science of the Sea 1775 1943 written by Natascha Adamowsky and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The depths of the oceans are the last example of terra incognita on earth. Adamowsky presents a study of the sea, arguing that – contrary to popular belief – post-Enlightenment discourse on the sea was still subject to mystery and wonder, and not wholly rationalized by science.

Download or read book Cannabis Sacred and Profane written by Christopher Partridge and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-08-22 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focussing on the ways in which cannabis has been demonized, sacralized and normalized, Christopher Partridge analyses the complex and often difficult relationship Western societies have had with the plant since the nineteenth century. After an introduction to cannabis and its uses, the book discusses how and why it was constructed as a profane influence and a marker of deviance. It then examines the emergence of medicinal cannabis, showing how this has contributed to its normalization and even its sacralization. Finally, there is a discussion of sacred cannabis, which looks at its use within modern occultism, Rastafari and several cannabis churches. Overall, the book provides a cultural history of cannabis in the modern world, which exposes the underlying reasons for the various and changing attitudes to this popular psychoactive substance.

Download or read book Visual Rhetoric and the Eloquence of Design written by Leslie Atzmon and published by Parlor Press LLC. This book was released on 2011-03-11 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in VISUAL RHETORIC AND THE ELOQUENCE OF DESIGN foreground the rhetorical functions of design artifacts. Rhetoric, normally understood as verbal or visual messages that have a tactical persuasive objective—a speech that wants to convince us to vote for someone, or an ad that tries to persuade us to buy a particular product—becomes in Visual Rhetoric and the Eloquence of Design the persuasive use of a broad set of meta-beliefs. Designed objects are particularly effective at this second level of persuasion because they offer audiences communicative data that reflect, and also orchestrate, a potentially broad array of cultural concerns. Persuasion entails both the aesthetic form and material composition of any object.

Download or read book Reader s Block written by Matthew Rubery and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-04 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does the term "reading" mean? Matthew Rubery's exploration of the influence neurodivergence has on the ways individuals read asks us to consider that there may be no one definition. This alternative history of reading tells the stories of "atypical" readers and the impact had on their lives by neurological conditions affecting their ability to make sense of the printed word: from dyslexia, hyperlexia, and alexia to synesthesia, hallucinations, and dementia. Rubery's focus on neurodiversity aims to transform our understanding of the very concept of reading. Drawing on personal testimonies gathered from literature, film, life writing, social media, medical case studies, and other sources to express how cognitive differences have shaped people's experiences both on and off the page, Rubery contends that there is no single activity known as reading. Instead, there are multiple ways of reading (and, for that matter, not reading) despite the ease with which we use the term. Pushing us to rethink what it means to read, Reader's Block moves toward an understanding of reading as a spectrum that is capacious enough to accommodate the full range of activities documented in this fascinating and highly original book. Read it from cover to cover, out of sequence, or piecemeal. Read it upside down, sideways, or in a mirror. For just as there is no right way to read, there is no right way to read this book. What matters is that you are doing something with it—something that Rubery proposes should be called "reading."

Download or read book Vocal Virtuosity written by Sean M. Parr and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction. Coloratura and Female Vocality -- The New Franco-Italian School of Singing -- Verdi and the End of Italian Coloratura -- Melismatic Madness and Technology -- Caroline Carvalho and Her World -- Carvalho, Gounod, and the Waltz -- Vestiges of Virtuosity : The French Coloratura Soprano -- Epilogue. Unending Coloratura.

Download or read book Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry II written by Kenneth S. Kendler and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-04-19 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Psychiatric and psychological practice and research is critically dependent on diagnosis. Yet the nature of psychiatric diagnosis and the rules by which disorders should be created and organized have been highly controversial for over 100 years. Unlike simple medical disorders (like infectious diseases), psychiatric disorders cannot be traced to one simple etiologic agent. The last two generations have seen major conceptual shifts in the approach to diagnosis with the rise of operationalized criteria and an emphasis on a descriptive rather than etiological approach to diagnosis. The interest in psychiatric diagnoses is particularly heightened now because both of the major psychiatric classifications in the world - DSM and ICD - are now undergoing major revisions. What makes psychiatric nosology so interesting is that it sits at the intersection of philosophy, empirical psychiatric/psychological research, measurement theory, historical tradition and policy. This makes the field fertile for a conceptual analysis. This book brings together established experts in the wide range of disciplines that have an interest in psychiatric nosology. The contributors include philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists, historians and representatives of the efforts of DSM-III, DSM-IV and DSM-V. Some of the questions addressed include i) what is the nature of psychiatric illness? Can it be clearly defined and if so how? ii) What is the impact of facts versus values in psychiatric classification? iii) How have concepts of psychiatric diagnosis changed over time? iv) How can we best conceptualize the central idea of diagnostic validity? And v) Can psychiatric classification be a cumulative enterprise seeking improvements at each iteration of the diagnostic manual? Each individual chapter is introduced by the editors and is followed by a commentary, resulting in a dynamic discussion about the nature of psychiatric disorders. This book will be valuable for psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health trainees and professionals with an interest in the questions and problems of psychiatric diagnosis, as well as philosophers and philosophy students interested in the problems posed by psychiatry, particularly those working in the philosophy of science.

Download or read book Genius in France written by Ann Jefferson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-21 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This engaging book spans three centuries to provide the first full account of the long and diverse history of genius in France. Exploring a wide range of examples from literature, philosophy, and history, as well as medicine, psychology, and journalism, Ann Jefferson examines the ways in which the idea of genius has been ceaselessly reflected on and redefined through its uses in these different contexts. She traces its varying fortunes through the madness and imposture with which genius is often associated, and through the observations of those who determine its presence in others. Jefferson considers the modern beginnings of genius in eighteenth-century aesthetics and the works of philosophes such as Diderot. She then investigates the nineteenth-century notion of national and collective genius, the self-appointed role of Romantic poets as misunderstood geniuses, the recurrent obsession with failed genius in the realist novels of writers like Balzac and Zola, the contested category of female genius, and the medical literature that viewed genius as a form of pathology. She shows how twentieth-century views of genius narrowed through its association with IQ and child prodigies, and she discusses the different ways major theorists—including Sartre, Barthes, Derrida, and Kristeva—have repudiated and subsequently revived the concept. Rich in narrative detail, Genius in France brings a fresh approach to French intellectual and cultural history, and to the burgeoning field of genius studies.

Download or read book A History of Euphoria written by Christopher Milnes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-17 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Very few people have not at some point in their lives believed themselves or their loved ones to be reasonably healthy when, in "reality", sickness was encroaching or never went away. Health has been deceiving us for thousands of years, but rarely have we entirely dispensed with it as a concept. This book sets out to establish why and how that might be. The first of its kind, this longue durée historical study explores some of the ways in which people in western societies and cultures have come to believe that they, or other people, have perceived or misperceived health, well-being and euphoria—a word which, before the twentieth century, usually named the experience of health. This book draws from a number of areas of historical research, including the histories of convalescence, addiction, madness and Sigmund Freud’s interest in Euphorie in his pre-psychoanalytical period.

Download or read book National Traditions in Nineteenth Century Opera Volume I written by Steven Huebner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume covers opera in Italy, France, England and the Americas during the long nineteenth century (1789-1914). The book is divided into four sections that are thematically, rather than geographically, conceived: Places-essays centering on contexts for operatic culture; Genres and Styles-studies dealing with the question of how operas in this period were put together; Critical Studies of individual works, exemplifying particular critical trends; and Performance.

Download or read book Soul Machine The Invention of the Modern Mind written by George Makari and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-11-02 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant and comprehensive history of the creation of the modern Western mind. Soul Machine takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when a crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life. This is the story of how a new concept—the mind—emerged as a potential solution, one that was part soul and part machine, but fully neither. In this groundbreaking work, award-winning historian George Makari shows how writers, philosophers, physicians, and anatomists worked to construct notions of the mind as not an ethereal thing, but a natural one. From the ascent of Oliver Cromwell to the fall of Napoleon, seminal thinkers like Hobbes, Locke, Diderot, and Kant worked alongside often-forgotten brain specialists, physiologists, and alienists in the hopes of mapping the inner world. Conducted in a cauldron of political turmoil, these frequently shocking, always embattled efforts would give rise to psychiatry, mind sciences such as phrenology, and radically new visions of the self. Further, they would be crucial to the establishment of secular ethics and political liberalism. Boldly original, wide-ranging, and brilliantly synthetic, Soul Machine gives us a masterful, new account of the making of the modern Western mind.

Download or read book Conceptions of Dreaming from Homer to 1800 written by G. W. Pigman III and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2019-01-31 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conceptions of Dreaming from Homer to 1800 traces the history of ideas about dreaming during the period when the admonitory dream was the main focus of learned interest—from the Homeric epics through the Renaissance—and the period when it began to become a secondary focus—the eighteenth century. The book also considers the two most important dream theorists at the turn of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud and Sante de Sanctis. While Freud is concerned with questions of what a dream means and how to interpret it, de Sanctis offers a synthesis of nineteenth-century research into what a dream is and represents the Enlightenment transition from particular facts to general laws.

Download or read book The Beauty of Baudelaire written by Roger Pearson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-16 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers the first comprehensive close reading in any language of the complete works of Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867). Taking full account of his critical writings on literature and the fine arts, it provides fresh readings of Les Fleurs du Mal and Le Spleen de Paris. It situates these works within the context of nineteenth-century French literature and culture and reassesses Baudelaire's reputation as the 'father' of modern poetry. Whereas he is traditionally considered to have rejected the public role of the writer as moralist, educator, and political leader and to have dedicated himself instead to the exclusive pursuit of beauty in art, this book contends not only that he rejected Art for Art's sake but that he saw in 'beauty'—defined not as an inherent quality but as an effect of harmony and rich conjecture—an alternative ethos with which to resist the tyrannies of ideology and conformism. Contrarian in his thinking and provocatively innovative in his poetic practice, Baudelaire fell foul of the law when six poems in Les Fleurs du Mal (1857) were banned for obscenity. In the second edition (1861), substantially recast and enlarged, the poet as alternative lawgiver made plainer still his resistance to the orthodoxies of his day. In a series of major critical articles he proclaimed the 'government of the imagination', while from 1855 until his death he developed an alternative literary form, the prose poem—a thing of beauty and an invitation to imagine the world afresh, to make our own rules.