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Literary Criticism General

Sanity, Madness, Transformation

The Psyche in Romanticism

by (author) Ross Woodman

edited by Joel Faflak

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Apr 2009
Category
General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781442610293
    Publish Date
    Apr 2009
    List Price
    $35.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802038418
    Publish Date
    Sep 2005
    List Price
    $83.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442679566
    Publish Date
    Jul 2005
    List Price
    $83
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442686281
    Publish Date
    Apr 2009
    List Price
    $93.00

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Description

In Sanity, Madness, Transformation, Ross Woodman offers an extended reflection on the relationship between sanity and madness in Romantic literature. Woodman is one of the field’s most distinguished authorities on psychoanalysis and romanticism. Engaging with the works of Northrop Frye, Jacques Derrida, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Jung, he argues that madness is essential to the writings of William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Percy Shelley, and that it has been likewise fundamental to the emergence of the modern subject in psychoanalysis and literary theory. For Frye, madness threatens humanism, whereas for Derrida its relationship is more complex, and more productive. Both approaches are informed by Freudian and Jungian responses to the psyche, which, in turn, are drawn from an earlier Romantic ambivalence about madness.

This work, which began as a collection of Woodman’s essays assembled by colleague Joel Faflak, quickly evolved into a new book that approached Romanticism from an original psychoanalytic perspective by returning madness to its proper place in the creative psyche. Sanity, Madness, Transformation is a provocative hybrid of theory, literary criticism, and autobiography and is yet another decisive step in a distinguished academic career.

About the authors

Ross Woodman, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Department of English, University of Western Ontario, is author of The Apocalyptic Vision in the Poetry of Shelley: Sanity, Madness, Transformation and Revelation and Knowledge, all with University of Toronto Press. He also authored Chambers, edited by Dennis Reid for Coach House Press and numerous articles on Canadian art and Romantic literature.

Ross Woodman's profile page

Joel Faflak is professor of English and Theory at Western University, where he was also the Inaugural Director of the School for Advanced Studies in the Arts and Humanities.

Joel Faflak's profile page