ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows a study of the body at the crux of literary Romanticism and medical discourse. The relation between these two fields has received much attention in recent years: the continuing emphasis on historicist revisions in Romantic Studies, especially in relation to science in general and medicine in particular. Its goal is neither to explore the influence of Romantic-Century medical education and theories on these poets and their texts, nor to reveal the presence of poetic tropes and influences in medical texts, but to theorize an interrelation between poetry and medicine that constitutes and is constituted by contemporary notions and the concomitant representations of the body. At the same time, closer attention to their statements concerning to lay the foundation for our engagements with the figure of the Poet-Physician in the second section of this study.
