Romanticism, Medicine, and the Poet's Body

'James Allard teaches readers to be alert to body language and the insistent presence of the body informing thought and word choice, not just in the moment of ache or pain, but in every act of perception and response an author attempts to record. His analysis of Wordsworth as poet of this "mighty world of eye and ear" is rich in new insights, and he reveals the extensive medical awareness that informs Joanna Baillie's Plays on the Passions, Thelwall's radical vitalism and vital radicalism, Keats's physical self-reflexivity, and Beddoes's tragicomic drama of death and godless resurrection.' Frederick Burwick, University of California, Los Angeles, USA 'Romanticism, Medicine, and the Poet's Body makes a significant contribution to Romantic-era cultural history and '"body studies", elucidating the problems of authority and anxiety in the way bodies are imagined in Romantic writing. Rigorously grounded in medical and scientific history, while also making space for the interpretation of literary style, Allard's book must become a key text for understanding that distinctively Romantic amalgam the "Poet-Physician".' Michael Bradshaw, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK ’... a rich and diverse book.’ European Romantic Review ’... carefully researched and closely reasoned... It joins a number of recent, important works in giving us a Romanticism that is fully informed by the best medical and scientific thinking of its time, and which thus expresses, rather than simply transcending, the conflicts and contradictions of embodied experience.’ European Legacy