Mind Over Matter

Sarah Eron is Associate Professor of English at the University of Rhode Island and author of Inspiration in the Age of Enlightenment.

Presents a fascinating reconsideration of eighteenth-century memory that invites a significant recalibration of how we understand the relationship not only between mind and matter in the period but also between the Enlightenment and Romanticism.-- "Eighteenth-Century Studies" A beautiful meditation on the curative potentials of memory. In innovative and virtuoso close readings of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century English novels, Eron highlights memory's kinship with the imagination. --Amit Yahav, University of Minnesota An innovative and provocative addition to the growing list of eighteenth- century literary analyses that focus on human cognitive processes. In this original book, Sarah Eron proposes a nuanced, complex understanding of memory that departs from the traditional Enlightenment, empiricist conception of memory as a mimetic imprint of sensory experience. -- "Eighteenth-Century Fiction" Sarah Eron's Mind Over Matter is not just an original and often brilliant consideration of the memory and imagination in the fictions of the long eighteenth century. It is a vital example of what literary criticism can contribute to a broader understanding of cognition and mental life, namely, close attention to the forms and creative force of memory in action. Mind Over Matter should be on the desk of everyone interested in a genuinely interdisciplinary humanities. --Jonathan Kramnick, Yale University