Edgar Allan Poe as Amateur Psychologist: A Companion Anthology

Edgar Allan Poe as Amateur Psychologist: A Companion Anthology explores Poe's place in the nineteenth-century science and pseudoscience of mental illness, highlighting his dramatizations of psychological diseases and their anticipation of modern nosological classifications and forensic research. The anthology gathers important essays by authors employing historicist and history-of-ideas methodologies, covering topics such as Poe's use of phrenology, moral treatment of the insane, theories of mind, psychopathology, and the psychosomatic connection. It is a valuable addition to Poe scholarship and will interest students, teachers, and readers interested in the history of ideas and the intersection between literature and mental philosophy.

Format: Hardback
Length: 274 pages
Publication date: 29 October 2021
Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing Inc

Edgar Allan Poe's place within the context of the scientific and pseudoscientific developments of the early nineteenth century is explored in depth in Edgar Allan Poe as Amateur Psychologist: A Companion Anthology. The book takes a dual perspective, looking back to the 1830s and 1840s, when Poe's literary career was at its peak, and forward to our own time to demonstrate how his dramatizations of psychological diseases occasionally anticipate modern nosological classifications and twenty-first-century forensic research. This interdisciplinary collection serves as a companion to its predecessor, Zimmerman's Edgar Allan Poe: Amateur Psychologist (Peter Lang, 2019). It brings together the most significant essays by authors who employ historicist and history-of-ideas methodologies.

The topics covered in this companion anthology are diverse and insightful. They include Poe's use and eventual disillusionment with phrenology, his attitude toward the controversial "moral treatment" of the insane, the "insanity defense" and its connection with the new theory of "moral insanity," the possible sources of his knowledge of theories of mind, psychopathology, and related therapies, his evolution as an amateur psychologist, the connection between physiological sickness and mental distress (the psychosomatic), and the ways in which the psychological profiles of his homicidal characters look forward to modern serial killers.

This companion anthology represents a substantial addition to Poe scholarship and will be of interest not only to Poe specialists but also to students, teachers, and any intelligent reader interested in the history of ideas and the intersection between literature and "mental philo.

Weight: 484g
Dimension: 225 x 150 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781433191213
Edition number: New ed