Description
Book SynopsisAs early as Aristotle's Problem XXX, intellectual superiority has been linked to melancholy. The association between sickness and genius continued to be a topic for discussion in the work of early modern writers, most recognizably in Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy. But it was not until the eighteenth century that the phenomenon known as the suffering scholar reached its apotheosis, a phenomenon illustrated by the popularity of works such as Samuel-Auguste Tissot's De la santé des gens de lettres, first published in 1768. Though hardly limited to French-speaking Europe, the link between mental endeavor and physical disorder was embraced with particular vigor there, as was the tendency to imbue intellectuals with an aura of otherness and detachment from the world. Intellectuals and artists were portrayed as peculiarly susceptible to altered states of health as well as psychethe combination of mental intensity and somatic frailty proved both the privileges and the perils of kno
Trade Review"
Suffering Scholars explores ideas with long lives and intricate cultural resonances. It shows the value of interdisciplinary approaches to concerns that pervaded societies in the past, and indeed continue to do so today." *
Modern Philology *
"Anne C. Vila's book is a model of concise and well-articulated rigor on a fascinating topic that has been neglected and overlooked-the medical literature devoted to the sicknesses of men of letters. She shows how these texts provide an excellent vantage point from which to survey significant aspects of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century literature and medicine. A striking achievement." * Colin Jones, Queen Mary University of London *
Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1. Medicine and the Cult of the Thinker, 1750-89
Chapter 2. The Ardor for Study: Inwardness and the Zealous Cerebralist
Chapter 3. Passions and the Philosophe
Chapter 4. Corporality and the Life of the Mind in Voltaire and Diderot
Chapter 5. Melancholy, Genius, and Intellectual Identity: The Cases of Rousseau and Staël
Chapter 6. Refashioning Intellectual Pathologies in the Wake of the Revolution
Epilogue. Not So Singular, After All?
Notes
Bibliography of Primary Sources
Index
Acknowledgments
