Affecting fictions: mind, body, and emotion in American literary realism

Abstract

Introduction: Affective Fallacy Entanglements of Two Cultures Literature and Neurology, 1860-1910 Rethinking Emotion 1. The Zest, the Tingle, the Excitement of Reality Toward a New Conceptual Genealogy for American Literary Realism Being Moved: Modernity, Evolution, and the Reflex Arc Laughter, Reflection, and Realization in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 2. Statistical Pity: Elsie Venner and the Controversy over Childbed Fever Case against Contagion Representing Ontological Shadows Holmes's Algebra of Human Nature Pathological Particularity in the Novel Coda: Anecdote and Abstraction 3. Fear and Epistemology: Tracking the Train of Feeling in A Mortal Antipathy From Physiognomy to Physiology Excess and Dissolution of the Nervous System Embodied Memory and the Pathogenic Secret Forensic Self 4. Nervous Effort: Gilman, Crane, and the Psychophysical Pathologies of Everyday Life Freud, Feminist Reading, and Interrogative Criticism A Physiological Approach to Nervousness Effort, Agitation, Aesthetics Fracture and Fabrication: Crane's Red Badge of Courage Coda: Reconstruction and The Yellow Wallpaper 5. Mindless Pleasure: Embodied Music in Awakening and Theron Ware New Varieties of Religious Experience Theron Ware and the Ironic Rhythm of the Sick Soul Kate Chopin's Lyrical Gospel of Relaxation Music and the Sounding Board of the Body Rhythm of Desire in Awakening Pleasures of The Storm 6. Corporeal Wonder: Occult Entrancements of Wings of the Dove Charming Milly From Trance to Transference--and Back Again William James and Mrs. Piper: Medium Is the Message Tremendous Rites of Nullification Conclusion: Burning Issues Notes Acknowledgments Index