Read on Twitter
Kevis Goodman's keynote on Reading Pathology and the Embodiment of Motion. 19th C. Pathology was the philosophical interpretation of disease. Proposes pathology as a way of exploring the connection between medicine and aesthetics. #rsaa19
Doctors work to identify the forces working on the body; in considering art, we work to identify the forces in the work that influence our mind and emotive responses. Therefore, 'prescribing' various forms of art or literature can reshape our mental state.
Disease calls attention to the situations that surround bodies, & so pathology, with its concern for causes, can be seen as a form of 'historiography', recognising changes in positive and negative stimuli. See WW's Preface to Lyrical Ballads for the literary pathology of the time
Wordsworth sees the disruption of metre as at times necessary for the 'passion of the sense', as a form of positive stimulus upon the reader. Metre is a historical principle, a set of rules from before, outside. Feeling for the subject is immediate, personal. A wonderful keynote!
