Strange Cases is the story of the mutual influence of the case history and the British novel during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Fictions from Defoe's Roxana to James's The Turn of the Screw and case histories from George Cheyne's to Sigmund Freud's have found narrative impetus in pathology. The writer of a case history faces a rhetorical bind unique to the human sciences: the need to display the acumen of a scientist and the sympathy warranted to the suffering patient. Repeatedly, case historians justify their publicizing of extreme, often morbid or perverse, states of mind and body by appealing to readers to take pity on patients and to recognize the narrative as a vital social document. Diagnosis and sympathy, explicit rhetorical modes in case histories, operate implicitly in novels, shaping reader-identification. While these two narrative forms set out to fulfill an Enlightenment drive to classify and explain, they also raise social and epistemological questions that challenge some of the Enlightenment's most cherished ideals, including faith in reason, the perfectibility of humankind, and the stability of truth.
| ISBN: | 9781138868687 |
| Publication date: | 27th February 2015 |
| Author: | Jason Tougaw |
| Publisher: | Routledge an imprint of Taylor & Francis Ltd |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 254 pages |
| Series: | Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory |
| Genres: |
Dietetics and nutrition |
Strange Cases is the story of the mutual influence of the case history and the British novel during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Fictions from Defoe's Roxana to James's The Turn of the Screw and case histories from George Cheyne's to Sigmund Freud's have found narrative impetus in pathology. The writer of a case history faces a rhetorical bind unique to the human sciences: the need to display the acumen of a scientist and the sympathy warranted to the suffering patient. Repeatedly, case historians justify their publicizing of extreme, often morbid or perverse, states of mind and body by appealing to readers to take pity on patients and to recognize the narrative as a vital social document. Diagnosis and sympathy, explicit rhetorical modes in case histories, operate implicitly in novels, shaping reader-identification. While these two narrative forms set out to fulfill an Enlightenment drive to classify and explain, they also raise social and epistemological questions that challenge some of the Enlightenment's most cherished ideals, including faith in reason, the perfectibility of humankind, and the stability of truth.
Strange Cases features in the following genres: Dietetics and nutrition
Strange Cases is available in Paperback, Ebook, Hardback
Strange Cases was written by Jason Tougaw and published by Routledge an imprint of Taylor & Francis Ltd
Strange Cases has 254 pages
Yes it is part of Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory series
£53.99