Author |
Stiles, Anne |
Year |
2012 |
Publisher |
Cambridge: CUP |
Number of pages |
274 |
ISBN |
9781107010017 |
Keywords |
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Abstract
Amazon (2013):
Explores how Gothic romances engaged with late Victorian cognitive science. The book
explains why popular novels like Dracula and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde expressed fears
and visionary possibilities suggested by contemporary neurological research. This
topic will interest literary scholars, historians of science and fans of Gothic literature
more generally.
In the 1860s and 1870s, leading neurologists used animal experimentation to establish
that discrete sections of the brain regulate specific mental and physical functions.
These discoveries had immediate medical benefits: David Ferrier's detailed cortical
maps, for example, saved lives by helping surgeons locate brain tumors and haemorrhages
without first opening up the skull. These experiments both incited controversy and
stimulated creative thought, because they challenged the possibility of an extra-corporeal
soul. This book examines the cultural impact of neurological experiments on late-Victorian
Gothic romances by Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, H. G. Wells and others. Novels
like Dracula and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde expressed the deep-seated fears and visionary
possibilities suggested by cerebral localization research, and offered a corrective
to the linearity and objectivity of late Victorian neurology.