Lucretian Thought in Late Stuart England: Debates about the Nature of the Soul

by L. Linker

Overview

How did writers understand the soul in late seventeenth-century England? This book considers depictions of the soul in literary texts that engage with Lucretius's Epicurean philosophy in De rerum natura or through the writings of the most important natural philosopher to disseminate Epicurean atomism in England, Walter Charleton (1619-1707).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137398574
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	11/01/2013
Series:	Palgrave Pivot
Edition description:	2013
Pages:	86
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Laura Linker is Assistant Professor of English at High Point University, USA.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Great Vibrations 1. Competing Motions 2. Outrageous Motions 3. Hysterical Motions 4. Contrary Motions Conclusion: The Spirits of the Soul

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Lucretian Thought in Late Stuart England makes an original and perceptive contribution to a growing body of research on the treatment of the soul in the literature of the late seventeenth- and early-eighteenth centuries. Linker convincingly demonstrates that the Restoration literary imagination was significantly affected by Epicurean thought, as mediated by contemporary editions of Lucretius's De rerum natura and the neo-Epicurean works of the physician and natural philosopher Walter Charleton, among others. Given the dearth of books on this subject, it was a pleasure to read Linker's study on the soul in Restoration literature written by both women and men who chronicled or staged its stirrings." - Holly Faith Nelson, Professor and Chair of English, Trinity Western University, Canada

Editorial Reviews

Linker’s book is intended to be a precisely focused study, somewhere in between a long scholarly article and an academic monograph (her entire text comes to a succinct eighty-two pages). Overall, this work succeeds within these modest confines: it is a concise, lucid, and insightful account of an unduly neglected topic in early modern literary studies.” (Jacqueline Broad, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 29 (3), 2017)

From the Publisher