The Visceral Novel Reader and Novelized Medicine in Georgian Britain
Class, Monika LU
(2016)
In Literature and medicine
34(2).
p.341-369
- Abstract
The article introduces "the visceral novel reader" as a diachronic, context-sensitive mode of novelistic reception, in which fact and fiction overlap cognitively: the mental rehearsal of the activity of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching while reading novels and, vice versa, the mental rehearsal of novels in the act of perceiving the real world. Located at the intersection of literature, medicine and science, "the visceral novel reader" enhances our understanding of the role that novels played in the dialectic construction of erudition in English. In Georgian Britain, reading practices became a testing ground for the professionalization of physicians, natural philosophers, and men of letters. While it was in the... (More)
The article introduces "the visceral novel reader" as a diachronic, context-sensitive mode of novelistic reception, in which fact and fiction overlap cognitively: the mental rehearsal of the activity of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching while reading novels and, vice versa, the mental rehearsal of novels in the act of perceiving the real world. Located at the intersection of literature, medicine and science, "the visceral novel reader" enhances our understanding of the role that novels played in the dialectic construction of erudition in English. In Georgian Britain, reading practices became a testing ground for the professionalization of physicians, natural philosophers, and men of letters. While it was in the professionals' common interest to implement protocols that taught readers to separate body from mind, and fact from fiction, novels came to stand for "debased" (visceral) reading. Novels inverted these notions by means of medicalization (regimentation, somatization, and individuation) and contributed to the professional stratification of medicine and literature.
(Less)
- author
- Class, Monika
LU
- publishing date
- 2016-01-01
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Delusions/history, Fantasy, Female, History, 15th Century, History, 16th Century, History, 18th Century, History, 19th Century, Humans, Imagination, Literature, Modern, Male, Medicine in Literature, Reading, Reality Testing, Somatoform Disorders/history, United Kingdom
- in
- Literature and medicine
- volume
- 34
- issue
- 2
- pages
- 29 pages
- publisher
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85014943522
- pmid:28569722
- ISSN
- 0278-9671
- DOI
- 10.1353/lm.2016.0017
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- id
- af949359-2e5f-4733-b276-f00361e7fb98
- date added to LUP
- 2022-09-10 12:19:30
- date last changed
- 2024-04-04 08:57:27
@article{af949359-2e5f-4733-b276-f00361e7fb98,
abstract = {{<p>The article introduces "the visceral novel reader" as a diachronic, context-sensitive mode of novelistic reception, in which fact and fiction overlap cognitively: the mental rehearsal of the activity of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching while reading novels and, vice versa, the mental rehearsal of novels in the act of perceiving the real world. Located at the intersection of literature, medicine and science, "the visceral novel reader" enhances our understanding of the role that novels played in the dialectic construction of erudition in English. In Georgian Britain, reading practices became a testing ground for the professionalization of physicians, natural philosophers, and men of letters. While it was in the professionals' common interest to implement protocols that taught readers to separate body from mind, and fact from fiction, novels came to stand for "debased" (visceral) reading. Novels inverted these notions by means of medicalization (regimentation, somatization, and individuation) and contributed to the professional stratification of medicine and literature.</p>}},
author = {{Class, Monika}},
issn = {{0278-9671}},
keywords = {{Delusions/history; Fantasy; Female; History, 15th Century; History, 16th Century; History, 18th Century; History, 19th Century; Humans; Imagination; Literature, Modern; Male; Medicine in Literature; Reading; Reality Testing; Somatoform Disorders/history; United Kingdom}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{01}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{341--369}},
publisher = {{Johns Hopkins University Press}},
series = {{Literature and medicine}},
title = {{The Visceral Novel Reader and Novelized Medicine in Georgian Britain}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lm.2016.0017}},
doi = {{10.1353/lm.2016.0017}},
volume = {{34}},
year = {{2016}},
}