عنوان

Eighteenth-century medical discourse and sensible bodies :

شماره

TLets410184

عنوان اصلي

Eighteenth-century medical discourse and sensible bodies :

نام عام مواد

[Thesis]

نام نخستين پديدآور

Ogawa, Kimiyo

عنوان اصلي به قلم نويسنده ديگر

sensibility and selfhood in the works of William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley

نام ناشر، پخش کننده و غيره

University of Glasgow

تاریخ نشرو بخش و غیره

2004

جزئيات پايان نامه و نوع درجه آن

Ph.D.

کسي که مدرک را اعطا کرده

University of Glasgow

امتياز متن

2004

متن يادداشت

In Eighteenth-Century Medical Discourse and Sensible Bodies: Sensibility and Selfhood in the Works of William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, I examine how medical, philosophical and theological discourses on sensibility and on selfhood mutually informed one another in the historical moment of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in England. The key to unravelling the complex notion of sensibility principally lies in the medical discourse that investigated the source of motion, knowledge, and moral feelings. I focus on the medical tracts which can be seen as discursive responses to Locke's epistemology. In addition, I read eighteenth-century philosophical texts and analysed some of the political debates on the French Revolution. The theory of associationism which is predicted on the study of nerves and sense-impressions throws some light on a particular aspect of sensibility which explores epistemological issues and character formation. I show how the nerve theory operated in gender specific ways, so exposing the gender bias of supposedly objective medical science. The specific writers I discuss, Godwin, Wollstonecraft and Shelley, all address the associations theory directly. A close examination of their appropriation of medical language reveals that the image of the sensible body was a constant source of inspiration, and that their literary production was a continual process of re-figuring such a medicalised body. My project attempts to make sense of the equivocal position of Godwin and Wollstonecraft, who, while upholding rationalism, avow sensibility in their literary and non-literary works. The underlying contradictions between the associationism and the authority of the individual's mind run deep. Rather than illustrating feminine reticence in Shelley's Frankenstein as a cultural reflection of a "proper lady," I argue that her characterisation of the monster and of female characters must be read as complex articulations of her sentiments about the discourses on sensibility and the problem of human agency.

موضوع مستند نشده

PR English literature

مستند نام اشخاص تاييد نشده

Ogawa, Kimiyo

مستند نام تنالگان تاييد نشده

University of Glasgow

نام الکترونيکي

فرمت انتشار

p

نوع ماده

[Thesis]

کد کاربرگه

276903

سطح دسترسي

a

تكميل شده

Y