Article ID: CBB891252321

Eugene Lee-Hamilton's Sonnets of the Wingless Hours: Baudelaire, Neurasthenia, and Poetic Recovery (2021)

unapi

This essay examines Eugene Lee-Hamilton's Sonnets of the Wingless Hours (1894) in the context of Charles Baudelaire's influence on the late-nineteenth-century English autobiographical sonnet sequence. Reading the sequence in the context of disability studies, we see that the poetics of illness that characterize Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (1857) shaped Lee-Hamilton's poetic account of his neurasthenic paralysis. Neurasthenia enabled Lee-Hamilton's transition from failed diplomat to successful literary figure, but the recovery that was taking place as he constructed Sonnets of the Wingless Hours also signaled the end of his poetic inspiration. This tension between the ailing body and the creative spirit sheds light not only on the psychology of the neurasthenic poet but also on the ways in which societal assumptions about the body affect both poetic production and reader response.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB891252321/

Similar Citations

Book Mossman, Mark; (2009)
Disability, Representation and the Body in Irish Writing, 1800--1922 (/isis/citation/CBB001230851/)

Article Bernabeu-Mestre, J.; Cid Santos, A. P.; Esplugues Pellicer, J. X.; Galiana-Sánchez, M. E.; (2008)
Categorías diagnósticas y género: los ejemplos de la clorosis y la neurastenia en la medicina española contemporánea (1877--1936) (/isis/citation/CBB000931877/)

Article Anne E Bailey; (2021)
The Female Condition: Gender and Deformity in High-Medieval Miracle Narratives (/isis/citation/CBB524481257/)

Chapter Pinet, Simone; (2010)
The Animal Within: Chivalry, Monstrosity and Gender in Renaissance Spain (/isis/citation/CBB001220298/)

Book Jenni Kuuliala; (2020)
Saints, Infirmity, and Community in the Late Middle Ages (/isis/citation/CBB184820800/)

Thesis Whitney Sperrazza; (2017)
Perverse Intimacies: Poetic Form and the Early Modern Female Body (/isis/citation/CBB538194831/)

Chapter Shelley W. Chan; (2016)
Narrating Cancer, Disabilities, and aids: Yan Lianke’s Trilogy of Disease (/isis/citation/CBB974132031/)

Article Tiziana Morosetti; (2017)
‘Etc. Etc.’: Replicating the ‘Exotic’ Body on the Nineteenth-Century British Stage (/isis/citation/CBB670178005/)

Book Ancet, Pierre; (2006)
Phénoménologie des corps monstrueux (/isis/citation/CBB000772823/)

Book Wright, David; (2011)
Downs: The History of a Disability (/isis/citation/CBB001200871/)

Book Gaspare Polizzi; (2008)
Per le forze eterne della materia. Natura e scienza in Giacomo Leopardi (/isis/citation/CBB000415134/)

Thesis Kurtis Hessel; (2017)
Poetry and Chemistry, 1770-1830: Mingling Exploded Systems (/isis/citation/CBB787342305/)

Book Clare John; M. M. Mahood; (2016)
A John Clare Flora (/isis/citation/CBB059160432/)

Article Elaine Bander; (2021)
‘The Astronomic Muse’: Charles Burney and Astronomy (/isis/citation/CBB202341709/)

Authors & Contributors
Polizzi, Gaspare
Elisa Tinelli
Anderson, Penelope
Howard Y. F. Choy
Hyrkäs, Eve-Riina
Zwart, Hub
Concepts
Science and literature
Disabilities; disability; accessibility
Human body
Poetry and poetics
Disease and diseases
Medicine
Time Periods
19th century
Medieval
21st century
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
Places
Great Britain
England
Spain
Italy
France
Finland
Comments

Be the first to comment!

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

Log in or register to comment