Article ID: CBB000610293

Cerebral Automatism, the Brain, and the Soul in Bram Stoker's Dracula (2006)

unapi

Neither literary critics nor historians of science have acknowledged the extent to which Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) is indebted to late-Victorian neurologists, particularly David Ferrier, John Burdon-Sanderson, Thomas Huxley, and William Carpenter. Stoker came from a family of distinguished Irish physicians and obtained an M.A. in mathematics from Trinity College, Dublin. His personal library contained volumes on physiology, and his composition notes for Dracula include typewritten pages on somnambulism, trance states, and cranial injuries. Stoker used his knowledge of neurology extensively in Dracula. The automatic behaviors practiced by Dracula and his vampiric minions, such as somnambulism and hypnotic trance states, reflect theories about reflex action postulated by Ferrier and other physiologists. These scientists traced such automatic behaviors to the brain stem and suggested that human behavior was “determined” through the reflex action of the body and brain—a position that threatened to undermine entrenched beliefs in free will and the immortal soul. I suggest that Stoker's vampire protagonist dramatizes the pervasive late-nineteenth-century fear that human beings are soulless machines motivated solely by physiological factors.

...More

Description Claims that Stoker's 1897 novel is indebted to late-Victorian neurologists, particularly David Ferrier, John Burdon-Sanderson, Thomas Huxley, and William Carpenter.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000610293/

Similar Citations

Thesis Stiles, Anne Meredith; (2006)
Neurological Fictions: Brain Science and Literary History, 1865--1905 (/isis/citation/CBB001560560/)

Article Mervyn Eadie; (2018)
Cortical Epileptogenesis and David Ferrier (/isis/citation/CBB925549416/)

Article Wayne Lazar, J.; (2009)
Anglo-American Interest in Cerebral Physiology (/isis/citation/CBB000953433/)

Book Stiles, Anne; (2012)
Popular Fiction and Brain Science in the Late Nineteenth Century (/isis/citation/CBB001200911/)

Chapter Nys, Michiel; (2013)
“An Undue Simplification”: Tennyson's Evolutionary Afterlife (/isis/citation/CBB001422075/)

Article White, Paul; (2005)
Ministers of Culture: Arnold, Huxley and Liberal Anglican Reform of Learning (/isis/citation/CBB000550825/)

Chapter Wallace, Jeff; (2013)
T. H. Huxley, Science and Cultural Agency (/isis/citation/CBB001422080/)

Chapter Levine, George; (2014)
Paradox: The Art of Scientific Naturalism (/isis/citation/CBB001422047/)

Book Michael Davis; (2006)
George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Psychology: Exploring the Unmapped Country (/isis/citation/CBB890472950/)

Chapter Lightman, Bernard; (2014)
Science at the Metaphysical Society: Defining Knowledge in the 1870s (/isis/citation/CBB001202322/)

Book Richardson, Alan; (2001)
British Romanticism and the science of the mind (/isis/citation/CBB000100059/)

Thesis Stefan Schöberlein; (2018)
Cerebral Imaginaries: Brains and Literature in the Transatlantic Sphere, 1800-1880 (/isis/citation/CBB941757615/)

Article François Boller; Nicoletta Caputi; (2018)
Thomas Mann’s Depiction of Neurosyphilis and Other Diseases (/isis/citation/CBB925365789/)

Book Romano, Terrie M.; (2002)
Making Medicine Scientific: John Burdon Sanderson and the Culture of Victorian Science (/isis/citation/CBB000201532/)

Book Stiles, Anne; (2007)
Neurology and Literature, 1860--1920 (/isis/citation/CBB000774274/)

Article Richards, Stewart; (1986)
Drawing the life-blood of physiology: Vivisection and the physiologists' dilemma, 1870-1900 (/isis/citation/CBB000045272/)

Authors & Contributors
Lazar, J. Wayne
Stiles, Anne
Schöberlein, Stefan
Folsom, Ed
Nicoletta Caputi
Nys, Michiel
Concepts
Science and literature
Neurosciences
Psychology
Human physiology
Philosophy of mind
Neurology
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
Places
Great Britain
United States
England
France
British Isles
Institutions
Metaphysical Society
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment