Melancholy Experience in Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century: Before Depression, 1660-1800

Contents......Page 6
Acknowledgements......Page 8
Authors’ Biographies......Page 9
‘Before Depression 1660–1800’......Page 12
Cultural inheritance......Page 14
Structure and topics......Page 30
The core problem – the paradox of fashionable disease......Page 36
Definitions of melancholy......Page 38
Symptoms and narratives......Page 44
Myths and realities of melancholy for Johnson and Boswell: masculine melancholies......Page 52
Women and melancholy genius......Page 55
Tissot: class, gender and fashionable melancholy in the Enlightenment......Page 57
From fashionable sensibility to Romantic vitalism – melancholy medicine and literature......Page 62
Languages of mood......Page 65
Coping with sorrow......Page 71
Melancholy philosophy......Page 76
The rewards of indifference......Page 85
‘Unhappy happiness’......Page 94
On John Pomfret: ‘The dark Recesses of the Mind’......Page 98
On Anne Finch: ‘Thro’ thy black Jaundice I all Objects see’......Page 102
On Matthew Green: ‘Laugh and be well’......Page 105
The hence and hail mode......Page 108
On Edward Young: ‘The great Magician’s dead!’......Page 112
The world as graveyard......Page 116
‘No Futurity’......Page 118
On William Cowper: ‘such a destin’d wretch as I’......Page 119
4 Despair, Melancholy and the Novel......Page 125
John Bunyan and the fictionalization of despair......Page 127
Daniel Defoe: despair and the isolated self......Page 131
Despairing of patriarchy: Samuel Richardson, Frances Burney and Mary Hays......Page 134
Henry and Sarah Fielding: despair at human nature......Page 141
Laurence Sterne: melancholy as default......Page 144
William Godwin: despair without religious solace......Page 147
James Hogg: deconstructing a genre......Page 148
Conclusion: the secularization of despair......Page 150
5 Melancholy, Medicine, Mad Moon and Marriage: Autobiographical Expressions of Depression......Page 153
Middle-class mind, body and soul: memoirs of ‘A Private Gentleman’......Page 156
Religious despair and medical desire: Anne Dutton......Page 163
Matrimonial misery: Elizabeth Freke......Page 168
‘Mad moon’ and masculine melancholy: Edmund Harrold......Page 175
Balancing the books......Page 179
Being normal......Page 181
‘Doctoring the mind’......Page 184
A promiscuity of symptoms, a plethora of cures......Page 191
Profits and losses......Page 196
A model physician......Page 197
A secular priesthood......Page 200
How to read......Page 203
The study of life......Page 211
Notes......Page 214
Bibliography......Page 239
Index......Page 251