American pain: The sentimental, the lyrical, the medical, the realistic

This dissertation investigates the meanings we make out of pain—the inseparable spheres of bodily pain and psychological suffering. I ask: How has American literature represented and interpreted pain in the latter half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century? What are the economic and moral consequences of such representations and interpretations of pain? What forms of linguistic expression disentangle bodily pain? I assert that American literature after the advent of surgical ether in 1846 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston offers a remarkable “turn” within the inquiry into pain and its representation. The question then becomes: How did certain literary modes of representation—the sentimental, the lyrical, the medical, the realistic—construct divergent and convergent meanings of bodily pain?

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2021

Author dc:creator

• Thomas, Eric Austin

Contributors dc:contributor

• Parker, Robert D.
• Newcomb, John T.
• Hunt, Irvin J.
• Jones, Jamie L.

• American literature
• pain
• sentimentalism
• realism
• lyric poetry
• medicine

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2020 Eric Thomas

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/109568

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/109568