The German Tradition of Psychology in Literature and Thought, 1700-1840

Matthew Bell is Senior Lecturer in German and Director of the Comparative Literature Programme at King's College London.

• Introduction; 1. The 'long past': psychology before 1700; 2. The Enlightenment: rationalism and sensibility; 3. Melancholy Titans and suffering women in Storm and Stress drama; 4. Weimar classicism and empirical psychology; 5. Idealism's campaign against psychology; 6. Romanticism and animal magnetism; 7. After Romanticism: the physiological unconscious; Bibliography; Index.

'Bell does an excellent job of charting the German psychology of his chosen period, exploring the expression of psychological theories … He succeeds admirably in one of his stated goals, which is to show that theoretical developments in psychology had a significant impact upon the literature and thought of the period. … As an illumination of an important part of psychology's 'long past', this work is masterful … students of literature and comparative literature will celebrate Bell's exploration of the rich vein of psychological ideas to be found in the German literature and thought of the period covered.' The Times Literary Supplement