Thomas Hardys Brains A Class of 1962 Endowment Talk

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Thomas Hardys BrainsA Class of 1962 Endowment
Talk

• Suzanne Keen

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Neurology, Psychology, and Hardys imagination

• A book-length study of the influence of
  contemporary brain science and psychology on
  Hardys imagery of mental and emotional
  experience in his fiction and poetry, Thomas
  Hardys Brains supplements existing work on
  Hardys philosophical and scientific sources with
  a fresh look at his representations of brains,
  nerves, and sensations.

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Who influenced Hardy?

• Never a slavish adapter of any one individuals
  thinking, Hardys work reveals the influence of
  contemporary neurological and psychological
  research. These influences combine with the
  well-documented impact of thinkers such as
  Darwin, Comte, Fourier, and Mill, as well as with
  Hardys own observations of human and animal
  behavior, to support his materialism and
  depictions of emotional reactions.

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Hardys sources and acquaintances

• I explore the direct and indirect sources of
  Hardys knowledge of late Victorian and early
  twentieth-century psychology, including his
  reading, his intellectual circle, and his chance
  acquaintance with one of the most important
  neurologists of his day, Henry Head, the editor
  of Brain, who became a friend and neighbor
  towards the end of Hardys life.

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Hardys Theory of Mind

• The book will describe Hardys evolving theory
  of mind as evinced in fictional characters
  interpret his depiction of characters suffering
  from various neurological pathologies and
  explore the imagistic schemas of brain and mind
  in his poetry, including The Dynasts.

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Where the study fits in broadly

• Recent scholarship in Victorian studies explores
  the relationship between psychological theories
  and ideas about the novel and reading (e.g., Nick
  Dames). The young field of cognitive approaches
  to literary study features single author studies
  of Frost, Shakespeare, and Dickinson, but little
  work on the novel. Some forthcoming or recent
  work describes the Theory of Mind of c18 and c19
  novelists (Lisa Zunshine, Blakey Vermeule).

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Where the study fits in more narrowly

• Work on Thomas Hardy has emphasized his
  philosophy over his psychology. However, in the
  late c19 and early c20, psychology attains status
  as a separate discipline. Psychological readings
  of Hardys work have featured Freudian or Jungian
  approaches. A few scholars (especially of The
  Dynasts) describe Hardys monist influences.
  Though he is widely regarded as a materialist
  writer, Hardys awareness of contemporary
  neurology has been completely neglected.

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My research questions

• What did Hardy know about contemporary
  psychology? (knew Bain secondhand through J. S.
  Mill read Spencer and Comte)
• What did Hardy read? (His Literary Notebooks
  and Letters are major resources, as well as his
  allusions)
• Would Hardy have ever seen The Lancet? (He
  belonged to several professional mens clubs in
  London these clubs had well-stocked libraries
  with periodicals.)

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Whom did Hardy know?

• Famous people (Leslie Stephen Henry Head)
• Ordinary folk (Hardy was an acute observer of
  regular peoples behavior. He depicts characters
  suffering from depression, phobias, obsessions
  monomania, and Tourettes Syndrome.)
• Animals (with his first wife Emma, Hardy
  strongly supported measures against cruelty to
  animals. He wrote sympathetically about the
  experiences and likely sensations of dogs,
  horses, sheep, and even birds.)
• Himself (introspection was a respected
  methodology in early psychological labs. Hardy
  was an acutely introspective writer.)

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Methods

• I combine biographical and historical research
  into Hardys life and influences with more
  literary forms of analysis. I am scrutinizing
• Concordance data
• Representations of major psychological areas of
  research and speculation (human and other forms
  of will consciousness the senses memory the
  brain and nerves) in the poetry and fiction
• Representations of fictional characters
  suffering from psychological disorders
• Representations of early brain science (The
  Woodlanders).

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Forays into Schema-Reading

• In addition to the more traditional literary
  analytical methods mentioned earlier, Thomas
  Hardys Brains represents my first effort in
  using the methodology of cognitive poetics to
  read Hardys imagistic schemas. Following Lakoff,
  Turner, Johnson, and Stockwell, I attempt to map
  the schemas of Hardys lyric poetry and the
  spatiality of his fictional worlds. It remains
  to be seen whether these new vocabularies for
  analysis actually add anything useful to the
  literary critics tool box. Readings in a works
  cognitive poetics often meet with intense
  skepticism and even hostility. Is it worth it?

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Enumerating Hardys Brains

• Concordance data shows that Hardys first
  sensational novel, Desperate Remedies (1871)
  employs brain or brains 21 times. The Woodlanders
  (1887), in which a doctor lusts after the brain
  of an old lady, comes in second with 13 mentions.
  All but two books Hardy published mention brains
  the exceptions come from among his romances and
  fantasies, The Trumpet-Major (1880) and The
  Well-Beloved (1892, 1897). Towards the end of his
  career, Hardys use of the word brain peaks in
  the long poem, The Dynasts (1904, 1906, 1908),
  with 26 occurrences.

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What does he mean by brains?

• tends to mean simply intelligence,
• refers to the contents of the skullas in The
  Dynasts
• diseases of the brain, particularly in
  animals, appear in Hardys references to
  shriveled up or liquefied brains.
• suicide crops up in idioms featuring the
  blowing out of brains.

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Do Hardys brains change?

• Desperate Remedies and the experience of living
  in a busy, fevered brain
• She thought and thought of that single fact
  which had been told herthat the first Mrs.
  Manston was still living till her brain seemed
  ready to burst its confinement with excess of
  throbbing.
• . . .
• As is well known, ideas are so elastic in a
  human brain, that they have no constant measure
  which may be called their actual bulk. Any
  important idea may be compressed to a molecule by
  an unwonted crowding of others and any small
  idea will expand to whatever length and breadth
  of vacuum the mind may be able to make over to
  it.

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Do Hardys brains change?

• The Woodlanders and brain tissue under the
  microscope
• She applied her eye, and saw the usual circle
  of light patterned all over with a cellular
  tissue of some indescribable sort.. . .
• Fitzpiers reveals it is old Mr. Souths brain
  tissue and explains, Here am I. . .endeavoring
  to carry on simultaneously the study of
  physiology and transcendental philosophy, the
  material world and the ideal, so as to discover
  if possible a point of contact between them and
  your finer sense is quite offended.

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The Dynasts neurological imagery

• The anatomy of the Immanent Will appears,
  exhibiting as one organism the anatomy of life
  and movement in all humanity and vitalized
  matter
• SPIRIT OF THE PITIES (after a pause)
• Amid this scene of bodies substantive
• Strange waves I sight like winds grown visible
• Which bear mens forms on their innumerous coils,
• Twining and serpentining round and through.
• Also retracting threads like gossamers
• . . .

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The Dynasts neurological imagery

• SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
• These are the Prime Volitions,fibrils, veins,
• Will-tissues, nerves, and pulses of the Cause,
• That heave throughout the Earths compositure.
• Their sum is like the lobule of a Brain
• Evolving always that it wots not of
• A Brain whose whole connotes the Everywhere,
• And whose procedure may but be discerned
• By phantom eyes like ours the while unguessed
• Of those it stirs, who (even as ye do) dream
• Their motions free, their orderings supreme

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The Dynasts neurological imagery

• At once, as earlier, a preternatural clearness
  possesses the atmosphere of the battle-field, in
  which the scene becomes anatomized and the living
  masses of humanity transparent. The controlling
  Immanent Will appears therein, as a brain-like
  network of currents and ejections, twitching,
  interpenetrating, entangling, and thrusting
  hither and thither the human forms.
• . . .
• There immediately is shown visually the
  electric state of mind that animates WELLINGTON,
  GRAHAM, HILL, KEMPT, PICTON, COLVILLE, and other
  responsible ones on the British side and on the
  French KING JOSEPH stationary on the hill
  overlooking his own centre, and surrounded by a
  numerous staff that includes his adviser MARSHAL
  JOURDAN, with, far away in the field, GAZAN,
  D'ERLON, REILLE, and other marshals. This vision,
  resembling as a whole the interior of a beating
  brain lit by phosphorescence, in an instant fades
  back to normal.

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Schemas of Brain

• Thoughts of Phena. BRAIN IS A FIRE BRAIN IS A
  CONTAINER.
• Natures Questioning. BRAIN IS AN EMPTY
  CONTAINER.
• A Wasted Illness. BRAIN IS A THEATER BRAIN IS
  A GOTHIC BUILDING BRAIN IS A CONTAINER you must
  journey throughLIFE IS A JOURNEY to get to
  death DEATH IS A DOOR.
• He Resolves to Say No More. BRAIN IS A FIRE.

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Likely structure of the book

• Contemporary psychology and neurology the big
  frame
• Hardys life and influences
• From Desperate Remedies to The Dynasts evolution
  of Hardys schemas
• The fiction, esp. The Woodlanders
• The lyric poetry and its image complexes
• Hardys emotion-saturated theory of mind

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Where this project fits in my work

• When I wrote my first book, I was mainly a
  Victorianist one of my chapters focused on
  Thomas Hardy. Since then I have worked in the
  areas of the novel, narrative theory, and
  literature and psychology (though not cognitive
  poetics). Like Hardy, I believe that affect is a
  neglected aspect of cognition. In my most recent
  book, I argue for the centrality of literary
  empathy for novel readers. Again like Hardy, I
  hold out little hope that reading alone can
  change the world, but with the old meliorist,
  believe that our feeling responses to other
  people and their words might make it a little
  less dreadful.

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Where this project fits in my teaching

• In winter 2007, a year from now, Ill teach
  English 299 Seminar for Prospective Majors. My
  topic will be Thomas Hardy, Novelist and Poet. I
  will integrate the methods and research questions
  Ive broached today into that seminar, in order
  to get the assistance of 15 smart English majors
  in thinking through my project before I write it.
• Thus we prosper, as scholars and teachers.