Cartesian Dualism, Real and Literary Madness in the Regency, and the Mind and Madness in Austen’s Novels

Austen’s ability to represent psychologically plausible characters poses the question of what she would have known about the mind and its disorders. An answer requires insight into the ways the mentally afflicted were treated during the Regency and mind and madness understood by some of Austen’s literary influences (William Shakespeare, James Boswell, and Elizabeth Hamilton). Austen’s depiction of mind and madness in her novels contrasts with what she knew and wrote about medicine and medical practices for physical illnesses and injuries. The tenor of the times and the circumspect treatment of mind and madness in her novels, in turn, suggest that whatever firsthand knowledge she would have had from witnessing mental impairment in two family members was scrupulously hidden.

Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journals of Scotland: The Creation of the Romantic Author

The increase in popularity of the Home Tour in the 19th century and the publication of many journals, diaries, and guides of tours of Scotland by, such as, Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, led to the perception of Scotland as a literary tour destination. The tour of Scotland invariably resulted in a journal in which identities such as writer, traveller, observer, were created. The text became a location for the pursuit of a sense of place and identity. For women in particular, the text offered opportunities to be accepted as a writer and commentator. Dorothy Wordsworth made two journeys to Scotland: the first, in 1803, with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the second, in 1822 with Joanna Hutchinson, the sister of Mary, her brother’s wife. This paper considers Dorothy’s identity constructed in those Scottish journals. Discussions of Dorothy Wordsworth have tended to consider her identity through familial relationship, and those of her writing by what is lacking in her work. Indeed, her work and her writing are frequently subsumed into the plural of ‘the Wordsworths’. This paper considers the creation of individual self in her work, and discusses the social and spatial construction of identity in Dorothy’s discourse in her journals about Scotland.

The Slave and the Lawyers: Francis Barber, James Boswell and John Hawkins

This chapter, written by Michael Bundock, describes competing portrayals of Francis Barber, the Jamaican manservant and friend of writer Samuel Johnson who worked in his household for the better part of three decades and became his heir. The incompatible depictions are found in separate biographies of Johnson written by lawyers John Hawkins and James Boswell as well as in other writings and letters. Hawkins’ biography, published first, is openly hostile to Barber. His disdain for Barber’s interracial marriage and criticism of Johnson’s indulgent financial and emotional support of Barber is tinged with racism. Bundock supposes that Boswell’s own biography of Johnson was, in part, a response and rebuke to Hawkins’—especially so in his favourable characterization of Barber, his wife and their closeness with Johnson. Comparing these rival biographies, Bundock attempts to evaluate the authors’ motivations as well as their attitudes to race.

Conclusion

On 14 November 1780, David Steuart Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan, the radical antiquary and natural historian, invited a group of ‘noblemen and gentlemen’ to his house to discuss the formation of what was to become the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.1 The list is a long and scintillating one, including Lord Kames, Lord Hailes, James Boswell, Gilbert Stuart, and a host of other worthies. Of the thirty-seven invited, however, only fourteen attended....