Creating Romantic Obsession: Scorpions in the Mind (Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine)

Most of us have, at one time, been obsessed with something, but how did obsession become a mental illness? This book examines literary, medical, and philosophical texts to argue that what we call obsession became a disease in the Romantic era and reflects the era’s anxieties. Using a number of literary texts, some well-known (like Mary Shelley’s 1818 __Frankenstein__ and Edgar Allan Poe’s 1843 “The Tell Tale Heart”) and some not (like Charlotte Dacre’s 1811 __The Passions__ and Charles Brockden Brown’s 1787 __Edgar Huntly),__ the book looks at “vigilia”, an overly intense curiosity, “intellectual monomania”, an obsession with study, “nymphomania” and “erotomania”, gendered forms of desire, “revolutiana”, an obsession with sublime violence and military service, and “ideality,” an obsession with an idea. The coda argues that traces of these Romantic constructs can be seen in popular accounts of obsession today. Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii Introduction: Scorpions in the Mind (Kathleen Béres Rogers)....Pages 1-21 Vigilia and the Science of the Mind in William Godwin’s Caleb Williams and Charles Brockden Brown’s Edgar Huntly, or Memoirs of a Sleepwalker (Kathleen Béres Rogers)....Pages 23-53 Intellectual Monomania and Enthusiasm in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Mary Hays’s Memoirs of Emma Courtney (Kathleen Béres Rogers)....Pages 55-89 The Stings of Love: Erotomania and Nymphomania in John Keats’s Isabella, or the Pot of Basil and Charlotte Dacre’s The Passions (Kathleen Béres Rogers)....Pages 91-118 Revolutiana and the Sublime in George Gleig’s Subaltern, Lord Byron’s Siege of Corinth, and Joanna Baillie’s Count Basil (Kathleen Béres Rogers)....Pages 119-148 Ideality and Art in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “Berenice” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” (Kathleen Béres Rogers)....Pages 149-188 Coda: From Scorpions to Spiders in A.S. Byatt’s Possession (Kathleen Béres Rogers)....Pages 189-202 Back Matter ....Pages 203-206