Using original research in scientific treatises, philosophical manuscripts, and political documents, this pioneering study describes the neglected era of revolutionary medicine in Europe through the writings of the English poet and physician, John Keats. De Almeida explores the four primary concerns of Romantic medicine--the physician's task, the meaning of life, the prescription of disease and health, and the evolution of matter and mind--and reveals their expression in Keats's poetry and thought. By delineating a distinct but unknown era in the history of medicine, charting the poet's milieu within this age, and providing close reading of his poems in these contexts, Romantic Medicine and John Keats illustrates the interdisciplinary bonds between the two healing arts of the Romantic period: medicine and poetry.
Industry Reviews
"Highly original, colorful, obsessively industrious....It profoundly alters our perception of Keats's imaginative inspiration....De Almeida makes one think again about Romanticism and that is no mean feat. She has said something new about Keats, she has taken risks of interpretation, she has minutely reconstructed not merely a scientific culture but a scientific emotion, a frame of mind we have almost lost."--New York Review of Books
"A rich, detailed study....A book which qualifies as that all-too-rare phenomenon: a genuinely original contribution to Keats and Romantic studies....Provides a wealth of information and suggestive commentary that scholars and critics will be learning from and drawing on for years to come."--Journal of English and Germanic Philology
"An impressive and enlightening piece of work."--Studies in English Literature
"The argument and the ambitious research that supports it generate a multiplicity of new insights into the poetry....The book is a remarkable achievement....She has here made a major contribution to our understanding of Keats and the Romantic period."--The Romantic Movement
"A significant contribution not only to Keats studies but to the intellectual history of the Romantic Period."--Keats-Shelley Journal
"Highly original, colorful, obsessively industrious....It profoundly alters our perception of Keats's imaginative inspiration....De Almeida makes one think again about Romanticism and that is no mean feat. She has said something new about Keats, she has taken risks of interpretation, she has minutely reconstructed not merely a scientific culture but a scientific emotion, a frame of mind we have almost lost."--New York Review of Books
"A rich, detailed study....A book which qualifies as that all-too-rare phenomenon: a genuinely original contribution to Keats and Romantic studies....Provides a wealth of information and suggestive commentary that scholars and critics will be learning from and drawing on for years to come."--Journal of English and Germanic Philology
"An impressive and enlightening piece of work."--Studies in English Literature
"The argument and the ambitious research that supports it generate a multiplicity of new insights into the poetry....The book is a remarkable achievement....She has here made a major contribution to our understanding of Keats and the Romantic period."--The Romantic Movement
"A significant contribution not only to Keats studies but to the intellectual history of the Romantic Period."--Keats-Shelley Journal
"An enterprise of this magnitude demands from its author exhaustive research, often involving obscure scientific treatises and philosophical manuscripts, and an encyclopedic vision of the transdisciplinary nature of the era. De Almeida meets this challenge admirably, providing us with a clear understanding of Romantic medicine and a host of new insights into Keats's thought."--Nineteenth-Century Literature
"It was a brilliant idea to make his poetry the centrepiece around which the author's scholarly exploration of romantic beliefs and attitudes could be organised. This is a book to be studied, savoured, and used for reference....De Almeida has enriched our knowledge of Keats and the times in which he lived."--The Lancet
"A valuable contribution to scholarship in medical, social, and intellectual history....A timely and provocative impetus to reflection."--Literature & Medicine
"A richly detailed study of the world of London medicine in Keats's day....An important resource for serious scholars at all levels."--Choice
"A fantastic assemblage of new and important information. It is interesting in its own right, but also--and more to the point--is continuously relevant to our understanding of Keats and his contemporaries, the Romantic period more generally, and the history of medicine and science in England."--Jack Stillinger, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
