1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910466227103321

Autore

Phillips Natalie M.

Titolo

Distraction : problems of attention in eighteenth-century literature / / Natalie M. Phillips

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Baltimore, Maryland : , : Johns Hopkins University Press, , 2016

©2016

ISBN

1-4214-2013-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (303 p.)

Disciplina

820.9/353

Soggetti

Enlightenment - Great Britain

Psychology and literature - History - 18th century

Distraction (Psychology)

Interest (Psychology)

Cognition in literature

English literature - 18th century - History and criticism

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Cover; Half-title; Title; Copyright; Contents; Preface; Introduction: The Literary History of Distraction; The Unifocal and the Multifocal; The Rise of the Distracted Character; Attention, Distraction, and Enlightenment Philosophy of Mind; A Swiftly Tilting Madness; Categorizing Distraction; 1 Mind Wandering: Forms of Distraction in the Eighteenth-Century Essay; Distraction and the Eighteenth-Century Essay; The Rhetoric of Attention: Appealing to Pathos and Brevitas; The Essay as a Tool of Focus; Training Attention to Attention; Strengthening Focus: Repetition and Dramatic Irony

Economies of AttentionThe History of Attention Span; 2 Lapses of Concentration: Distracted Vigilance and the Female Mind; Environment and Mind: Urban Diversion and the Distracted Brain; The Problem of a Soft Female Mind; Sex, Environment, and the Multifocal Coquette; The Challenges of Situational Awareness; Philosophizing Multiplicity: Cognitive Bottlenecks and Sorting Gloves; Strained Omniscience and the Distracted Heroine; The Crowded Syntax of Sexual Inattention; "Might



as Well Be Passed Over as Read": Indulging the Diverted Reader

3 Scattered Attention: Distraction and the Rhythm of Cognitive OverloadRhythms of Narrative, Rhythms of Mind; Tristram's Style and the Scattered Rhythms of Cognitive Overload; Susannah and the Vexed Situation of Madam Reader; The Anatomy of Parallel Processing; The Sermon and Rhythms of Distraction; Hobbyhorses and the Individual Beat of Interest; Irregular Distraction: The Tempo of Cognitive Overload; Rhythms of the Brain: Creativity and the Timing of Distraction; 4 Fixated Attention: The Gothic Pathology of Single-Minded Focus; Microscope and Mind

Scientific Metaphors and the Madness of AttentionThe Politics and Poetics of Fixation; Involuntary Attention: A Multifocal Selective Blindness; Sympathy and the Bene.ts of Distraction; Rewriting Suspense: Interruption and the Gothic Sublime; Fixation and the Science of Obsession; 5 Divided Attention: Characterization and Cognitive Richness in Jane Austen; The Power of Multitasking in Pride and Prejudice; The Singular Importance of Inattentive Characters; Mr. Hurst: The Limited Capacity of the Undivided Mind; Mrs. Jenkinson: Narrow Bandwidth and the Creation of Depth

Lydia and Miss Bingley: Caricaturing Cognitive VacancyThe Dangers of Too Much Attention; Distraction as Liveliness of Mind; Mary Bennet: Hyperfocus and Cognitive Immobility; Lady Catherine de Bourgh: The Problem of Excessive Vigilance; Elizabeth Bennet: The Bene.ts of Diversion; Characterizing Reading: Maps of Distraction and Interest; Coda: History of Mind and Literary Neuroscience; Interdisciplinarity: From Theory to Practice; Literary Attention: An fMRI Study of Reading Jane Austen; The Value of Literary History; Notes; Bibliography; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; R

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