Evolution and Epilepsy in Bleak House
Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 September 1, 2011 Anna Neill
In Charles Dickens's novels, nervous seizures trigger dreamy, clairvoyant episodes in which normally imperceptible connections and relations among events and characters come to light. During such episodes, which the neurologist John Hughlings Jackson would describe as "voluminous" states of consciousness, the boundaries of the self dissolve, and the mind becomes attuned to a range of possible...