Shelley And Vitality

by Ruston, Sharon

• ISBN13: 9781403918246
• ISBN10: 1403918244
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-06-11
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Shelley and Vitality reassesses Percy Shelley's engagement with early nineteenth-century science and medicine, specifically his knowledge and use of theories on the nature of life presented in the debate between surgeons John Abernethy and William Lawrence. Sharon Ruston offers new biographical information to link Shelley to a medical circle, and major canonical works are reconsidered to address Shelley's politicized understanding of contemporary scientific discourse.

Author Biography

Sharon Ruston is Lecturer in English Literature to the University of Wales, Bangor.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
List of Abbreviations and Manuscripts Cited	xi
Introduction: A New Dawn	1	(23)
What is life?	2	(8)
The vitality debate	10	(5)
Materialism and atheism	15	(9)
1 The Vitality Debate, 1814-19	24	(50)
Vitality and radical scientists	24	(10)
Humphry Davy: Romantic scientist	34	(4)
Abernethy and Lawrence	38	(25)
After 1819	63	(11)
2 Shelley's Knowledge of the 'Science of Life'	74	(28)
1811	74	(7)
Shelley and Bart's	81	(5)
Lawrence and the Bracknell Circle	86	(9)
Shelley's notes on Davy	95	(7)
3 The Political Body: Prometheus Unbound	102	(30)
The furies and animal life	102	(8)
Electricity as life	110	(7)
Earth as a living being	117	(8)
Utopian new life	125	(7)
4 'The Painted Veil': Defining Life	132	(25)
Sensibility and the figure of the poet	132	(6)
Mutability	138	(7)
The painted veil	145	(6)
Materialism	151	(6)
5 'The Poetry of Life'	157	(24)
Life cycles	157	(6)
Vitally metaphorical	163	(5)
Posthumous life	168	(6)
Beginnings and endings	174	(7)
Conclusion	181	(5)
Notes	186	(23)
Bibliography	209	(13)
Index	222