Thomas De Quincey and the Cognitive Unconscious

This book examines Thomas De Quincey's notion of the unconscious in the light of modern cognitive science and nineteenth-century science. It challenges Freudian theories as the default methodology in order to understand De Quincey's oeuvre and the unconscious in literature more generally.

"Much more than a significant addition to De Quincey studies, Thomas de Quincey and the Cognitive Unconscious makes a key intervention into British Romantic scholarship as a whole, adding greatly to our understanding of the interrelations among science and literature in the period while powerfully enriching the key concept of "the unconscious." Original, lively, provocative, and scholarly, Markus Iseli's book makes essential reading for students of nineteenth-century literature, culture, science, and psychology." Alan Richardson, Professor of English, Boston College, USA, author of The Neural Sublime

Autorentext
Markus Iseli holds a PhD from the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He published articles in journals such as the European Romantic Review and Romanticism, and he is the recipient of a Swiss National Science Foundation research grant. His work on the cognitive unconscious in the nineteenth-century context also earned him the Henry-E.-Sigerist-Prize from the Swiss Society for the History of Medicine and Sciences.

Inhalt

List of Tables
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
PART I: LANGUAGE

1. The Need for Neologisms and the Emergence of Subconscious
2. De Quincey ' 's Subconscious and the Cognitive Unconscious
3. Style and the Revelatory Power of Language
   PART II: BODY AND BRAIN
4. The Embodied Unconscious in Animal Magnetism and Physiology
5. Mesmeric and Opium-Induced States of Mind
6. The Brain-Mind in the Confessions, Literary Criticism, and Suspiria
   Epilogue
   Appendix A
   Appendix B
   Notes
   Bibliography
   Index