Overview

Locating Poe firmly within his Zeitgeist vis-à-vis the science and pseudoscience of the early nineteenth century, Edgar Allan Poe as Amateur Psychologist: A Companion Anthology simultaneously looks back from the 1830s and 1840s (when his literary career was at its height) to eighteenth-century theories and sources of information on mental illness, as well as forward to our own time to demonstrate how Poe’s dramatizations of psychological diseases occasionally anticipate modern nosological classifications and twenty-first-century forensic research. This interdisciplinary collection is a companion to its predecessor, Zimmerman’s Edgar Allan Poe: Amateur Psychologist (Peter Lang, 2019); it gathers the most important essays by authors—Hungerford, Stauffer, Stern, Bynum, Cleman, Hester and Segir, Phillips, Shackelford, Scheckel, Lloyd-Smith, Whipple, Butler, Uba, Walker, Zimmerman—who employ historicist and history-of-ideas methodologies. Topics include Poe’s use of and eventual disillusionment with phrenology; his attitude toward the controversial “moral treatment” of the insane as well as the “insanity defense” and its connection with the new theory of “moral insanity”; the possible sources of his knowledge of theories of mind, psychopathology and related therapies; his evolution as an amateur psychologist; the connection between physiological sickness and mental distress (the psychosomatic); and the ways in which the psychological profiles of his homicidal characters look forward to modern serial killers. This companion anthology represents a significant addition to Poe scholarship and will be of interest not only to Poe specialists but also to students, teachers, and any intelligent reader interested in the history of ideas and the intersection between literature and “mental philosophy.”

Full Product Details

Author:   Brett Zimmerman
Publisher:   Peter Lang Publishing Inc
Imprint:   Peter Lang Publishing Inc
Edition:   New edition
Weight:   0.484kg
ISBN:  

9781433191213

ISBN 10:   1433191210
Pages:   274
Publication Date:   29 October 2021
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments – Brett Zimmerman: Introduction – Phrenology – Edward Hungerford: Poe and Phrenology – Madeleine B. Stern: Poe: “The Mental Temperament” for Phrenologists – Donald B. Stauffer: Poe as Phrenologist: The Example of Monsieur Dupin Mainstream Psychology – William Whipple: Poe’s Two- Edged Satiric Tale [“The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether”] – Allan Gardner Lloyd- Smith (Allan Smith): The Psychological Context of Three Tales by Poe – Elizabeth C. Phillips: Mere Household Events: The Metaphysics of Mania – Paige Matthey Bynum: “Observe How Healthily— How Calmly I Can Tell You the Whole Story”: Moral Insanity and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell- Tale Heart” – John Cleman: Irresistible Impulses: Edgar Allan Poe and the Insanity Defense – Vicki Hester and Emily Segir: “The Black Cat” and Current Forensic Psychology – Lynne Piper Shackelford: “Infected by Superstitions”: Folie à Deux in “The Fall of the House of Usher” – Susan Scheckel: Home- Sickness, Nostalgia, and Therapeutic Narrative in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” – Brett Zimmerman: Charley Goodfellow as Psychopathic Personality in “Thou Art the Man” – The Psychosomatic – I. M. Walker: The “Legitimate Sources” of Terror in “The Fall of the House of Usher” – David W. Butler: Usher’s Hypochondriasis: Mental Alienation and Romantic Idealism in Poe’s Gothic Tales – George R. Uba: Malady and Motive: Medical History and “The Fall of the House of Usher” – Index.

Reviews

Zimmerman's anthology is a rich resource for students delving into the dark mental underground of Poe's characters. Many of these close readings are based on the history of the 'science of mind,' supplying a reservoir of terminology from the 1730s through the 1840s. These essays are instrumental in interpreting a world as unsettling as it is unknown to twenty-first-century readers. Tapping into modern psychological theory, other essays demonstrate Poe's prescience as a pioneer of psychopathology. -David E. E. Sloane, Professor of English, University of New Haven

Zimmerman's anthology is a rich resource for students delving into the dark mental underground of Poe's characters. Many of these close readings are based on the history of the 'science of mind,' supplying a reservoir of terminology from the 1730s through the 1840s. These essays are instrumental in interpreting a world as unsettling as it is unknown to twenty-first-century readers. Tapping into modern psychological theory, other essays demonstrate Poe's prescience as a pioneer of psychopathology. -David E. E. Sloane, Professor of English, University of New Haven

Author Information

Brett Zimmerman received his BA from the University of Toronto and his MA and PhD from York University, from which he retired as Associate Professor. He has published Herman Melville: Stargazer (1998), Edgar Allan Poe: Rhetoric and Style (2005), and Edgar Allan Poe: Amateur Psychologist (2019).

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