Madness and the Romantic poet : a critical history

Resource Information

The work Madness and the Romantic poet : a critical history represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Madness and the Romantic poet : a critical history

Title remainder

a critical history

Statement of responsibility

James Whitehead

Creator

• Whitehead, James, (Writer on romanticism)

Author

• Whitehead, James, (Writer on romanticism)

Subject

• Englisch
• English poetry
• English poetry -- 19th century -- Appreciation
• English poetry -- 19th century -- History and criticism
• English poetry -- Appreciation
• Great Britain
• Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 19th century
• History
• Intellectual life
• 1800-1899
• Literature and mental illness
• Literature and mental illness -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century
• Romanticism
• Romanticism -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century
• Romantik
• Wahnsinn
• Literatur
• Criticism, interpretation, etc

Genre

• History
• Criticism, interpretation, etc

Language

eng

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?"--

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

YDX

Dewey number

810/820

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

LC call number

PR585.P85

LC item number

W45 2017

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography