Evolution and Epilepsy in Bleak House

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Issue Date
2011-10-01Author
Neill, Anna
Publisher
Rice University
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, author accepted manuscript
Published Version
http://sel.rice.eduhttp://muse.jhu.edu/journals/studies_in_english_literature/v051/51.4.neill.html
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Show full item recordAbstract
In Charles Dickens's novels, nervous seizures trigger dreamy, clairvoyant episodes in which normally imperceptible connections and relations among events and characters come to light. During such episodes, which the neurologist John Hughlings Jackson would describe as "voluminous" states of consciousness, the boundaries of the self dissolve, and the mind becomes attuned to a range of possible identities or phantom selves. The specters unleashed in this state of nervous "dissolution" haunt Bleak House even as they illuminate relations among members of vastly different social worlds and the great institutional forces that affect the most curious events of the mind.
Description
This is the author's accepted manuscript.The original publication is available at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/studies_in_english_literature/v051/51.4.neill.html.
Collections
- English Scholarly Works [308]
Citation
Neill, Anna. "Evolution and Epilepsy in Bleak House." SEL (Studies in English Literature) 51.4 (Fall 2011).
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