Typhoid Fever., Tropical Medicine., Sepsis., History, 18th Century., Fever., Medicine in Literature., Human body in literature., English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism., Diseases and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century., Fever in literature., Culture in literature., Perception in literature., Medicine in literature., Sentimentalism in literature., Sex differences in literature., Social classes in literature., Criticism, interpretation, etc., and History.
Abstract
"This book situates eighteenth-century medical fever texts in the broader framework of sentimental culture, reading works by physicians like Sir Richard Manningham, George Fordyce, John Leake, James Carmichael Smyth, and James Lind against various fictions of the period - novels like Frances Sheridan's Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph, Sarah Fielding's The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last, Mary Wollstonecraft's Maria, J.W. Orderson's Creoleana, William Godwin's Caleb Williams, Charles Dickens's Bleak House, and poetry like James Grainger's The Sugar Cane and Anna Letitia Barbauld's "Epistle to William Wilberforce." These juxtapositions not only reveal the degree to which physicians deployed the sentimental discourse used by literary artists but also demonstrate that "fever" as a disease and metaphor was a highly fluid construct, evoked for different reasons and shaped according to various cultural imperatives." "Desire and Disorder makes a unique contribution to eighteenth-century studies, introducing and analyzing a body of texts - medical fever writing - until now unexplored for its wide-reaching cultural significance. In addition to these medical essays and treatises, the book draws from a wide range of other documents: novels, poetry, plays, expansionist propaganda, social reform tracts, parliamentary reports, personal correspondence, diaries, and political cartoons. Interdisciplinary in nature, Desire and Disorder will appeal to a variety of readers including medical historians, literary critics, historians of the long eighteenth century, and those concerned with the intersections of popular culture and the sciences."--Jacket.
TEARS (Body fluid), CRYING, PHILOSOPHY of emotions, GREAT Britain -- Social life & customs -- 18th century, SENTIMENTALISM in literature, FRENCH Revolutionary Wars, 1792-1802, SYMBOLISM, and HISTORY
Abstract
Eighteenth-century Europe and its renowned cult of sensibility have a special place in the history of tears. This article revisits weeping in eighteenth-century Britain, seeking especially to recover the religious practices, texts, and ideas involved in the production and interpretation of tears. Some of the most prolific and public weeping of the period was produced by the Methodist revival, and especially the preaching of the "Weeping Prophet", George Whitefield. A different, more melancholy form of enthusiasm was the keynote of Henry Mackenzie's famously lachrymose novel The Man of Feeling (1771), reinterpreted here as a handbook of Christian sensibility and religious weeping. On both sides of the French Revolution debate in Britain in the 1790s, tears were shed, but were also denounced. The retrospective belief that tearful sensibilities had given rise to dangerous ideologies and bloody violence cast the practice of weeping in a new light. Suspicions of religious "enthusiasm" from earlier periods were now applied to revolutionary sympathisers in Britain, and commentators, including Helen Maria Williams, began to discuss the idea that it was un-English to weep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Studies in Romanticism; Fall2008, Vol. 47 Issue 3, p321-349, 29p
Subjects
CRITICISM, BRITISH women authors, SENTIMENTALISM in literature, and ROMANTICISM
Abstract
The article analyzes the book "Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark" ("Letters From Norway") by Mary Wollstonecraft, as at once a travel narrative, autobiography, and sentimental discourse. It is also examined as a piece of late "Sensibility" literature, a forerunner of Romanticism, and a groundbreaking work in women's literature.
Eighteenth Century Fiction. Spring2010, Vol. 22 Issue 3, p477-502. 26p.
Subjects
CRITICISM, IRONY in literature, SENTIMENTALISM in literature, and MODERNISM (Literature)
Abstract
A literary criticism of the novel "David Simple," by Sarah Fielding is presented. Particular focus is given to the use of sentimental irony and the use of rhetoric in 18th century British literature. The relationship between modernity and the concept of value, the corruptible influence of the economic system, and differences between satiric and sentimental irony are examined. The novel's characters and plot are also discussed.
20TH century English poets, MILITARY officers, WORLD War I, POETS, ENGLISH poetry, LITERARY style, SENTIMENTALISM in literature, NATIONALISM in literature, and WAR poetry
Abstract
This article presents an in-depth profile of the British World War I era poet Charles Hamilton Sorley and his works depicting the events of the war. An overview is given of Sorley's life, highlighting his college education and travels documented through examples from his letters to friends, along with his death at the Battle of Loos, France. Sorley's literary style is discussed in detail, pointing out his objective moderation between sentimentality and nationalism, as well as his broad-scoped voicing, often referring to large groups instead of simply his own emotional experiences in the Great War.
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