Melancholy Experience in Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century Before Depression, 1660-1800

by Ingram, Allan; Sim, Stuart; Lawlor, Clark; Terry, Richard; Wetherall Dickson, Leigh; Baker, John

• ISBN13: 9780230246317
• ISBN10: 0230246311
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Arising from a research project on depression in the eighteenth century, this book discusses the experience of depressive states both in terms of existing modes of thought and expression, and of attempts to describe and live with suffering. It also asks what present-day society can learn about depression from the eighteenth-century experience.

Author Biography

Allan Ingram is Professor of English at the University of Northumbria, UK. He has published widely in the field of eighteenth-century studies and particularly on literature and madness. Stuart Sim is Visiting Professor of Critical Theory and Long Eighteenth-Century English literature in the Department of English and Creative Writing, University of Northumbria, UK. He has published widely in his two main subject areas. Clark Lawlor is Reader in English Literature at the University of Northumbria, UK, and has published many works on literature and medicine. Richard Terry is Professor of Eighteenth-Century English Literature at University of Northumbria, UK, having worked for many years at the University of Sunderland. He has published extensively on eighteenth-century poetry and on mock-heroic as a literary device and form. John Baker is Matre de confrences (Senior Lecturer) in English at the Universit Paris 1 Panthon-Sorbonne, France. He has published In French and English on themes associated with the writings of Edward Young and the Night Thoughts, and more generally on poetry of the eighteenth century. Leigh Wetherall-Dickson is Senior Lecturer in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth- Century English Literature at University of Northumbria, U K, and began her career there as a post-doctoral Research Associate on the Leverhulme-funded Before Depression 1660-1800 project.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Author Biographies
Introduction: Depression Before Depression; A.Ingram & S.Sim
Fashionable Melancholy; C.Lawlor
Philosophical Melancholy; R.Terry
‘Strange contrarys’: Figures of Melancholy in Eighteenth-Century Poetry; J.Baker
Despair, Melancholy and the Novel; S.Sim
Melancholy, Medicine, Mad Moon and Marriage: Autobiographical Expressions of Depression; L.Wetherall-Dickson
Deciphering Difference: A Study in Medical Literacy; A.Ingram
Bibliography
Index