Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the blind in France / William R. Paulson.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-255) and index.

Print version record.

Introduction: Unseeing in the Eye -- 1. "Suppose a Man Born Blind..." -- 2. Diderot: Philosophy and the World of the Blind -- 3. Curing Blindness: A Modern Myth -- 4. A Modern Project: Educating the Blind -- 5. From Chateaubriand to Balzac: Literature and Loss of Sight -- 6. Hugo: Blind Seers, Blind Lovers, and the Violence of History -- Epilogue

Paulson examines literary, philosophical, and pedagogical writing on blindness in France from the Enlightenment, when philosophical speculation and surgical cures for cataracts demystified the difference between the blind and the sighted, to the nineteenth century, when the literary figure of the blind bard or seer linked blindness with genius, madness, and narrative art. A major theme of the book is the effect of blindness on the use of language and sign systems: the philosophes were concerned at first with understanding the doctrine of innate ideas, rather than with understanding blindness as such.Originally published in 1987.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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