Post-romantic Consciousness: Dickens to Plath

Post-Romantic Consciousness follows on from Beer's study, Romantic Consciousness, discussing further questionings of human consciousness. As Darwinism gained ground, undermining Romantic modes of thought, questions concerning human consciousness remained. In Dickens, for example, the struggle between a consciously affectionate and benevolent view of the world and an unconscious attraction to the criminal and violent probably led eventually to his failure to complete his last novel. Similar contradictions produced the Society for Psychical Research, where it was hoped that scientific investigation of abnormal psychical experiences might produce further insights into human nature. F.W.H. Myers's postulation of a 'subliminal self' in all human beings suggested one solution, while William James and European thinkers such as Heidegger, Sartre and Havel explored further conceptions of Being. Romantic influence persisted, however: Virginia Woolf, with her 'moments of Being', and Lawrence's insistence on another level of consciousness in human beings were followed in time by Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, demonstrating a dialectic between her multifarious 'modern' consciousness and his rooted, physical sense of Being.

Table of Contents:
Contents Questioning Consciousness Dickens's Unfinished Fiction Essaying the Heights, Sounding the Depths: F.W.H. Myers and Edmund Gurney James, Heidegger, Sartre, Havel: Other Versions of Being Woolf's Moments; Lawrence's Daemon Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes: The Hazards of Incompleteness Index

About the Author :
JOHN BEER is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Cambridge and Fellow of Peterhouse. His work on Romanticism includes Coleridge the Visionary, Coleridge's Poetic Intelligence, Blake's Humanism, Blake's Visionary Universe, Wordsworth and the Human Heart, Wordsworth in Time, Questioning Romanticism (ed.), Romantic Influences and Providence and Love. He has edited Coleridge's Poems for Everyman's Library, his Aids to Reflection for the Collected Works and is General Editor of the series Coleridge's Writings.

Review :
'As the editors of his Festchrift hoped, some years ago now, John Beer's lucid, infectiously enthusiastic and unignorable interrogation of Romanticism continues... his work is quietly and usefully informed by the new vistas...Beer has shown himself to be a critic unusually capable of handling the reach and dynamics of the Coleridgean repertoire. But in this work, he is even more ambitious. The ambition is obvious in the historical range attempted. It is matched by a boldly speculative question that he addresses directly.' - Paul Hamilton, Queen Mary, University of London, Romanticism 'Beer's book makes a persuasive case for the enduring legacy of the Romantic preoccupation with that part of the self that is distinct from 'conscious ratiocination." - Ann Gaylin, Times Literary Supplement