The Nervous Stage Nineteenth-century Neuroscience and the Birth of Modern Theatre

The Nervous Stage examines the relations between theatrical practices and the scientific study of the nervous system, arguing that to a significant degree, modern theater emerged out of the interaction between these two apparently disparate fields. In six chapters, The Nervous Stage makes three fundamental contributions to scholarship on comparative literature, specifically in the areas of drama/performance, cognitive literary studies, and the beginnings of global modernism. Through a series of revisionist readings of specific theatrical works and artists, Smith demonstrates that a number of literary texts were deeply engaged in dialogue with the neurological sciences of their period, and that an appreciation of this dialogue helps us better to understand their significance for their own historical period as well as for our own. Furthermore, it argues that a number of lesser-known works-ranging from certain "closet dramas" such as Shelley's The Cenci to popular melodramas such as Augustin Daly's Under the Gaslight-had much greater cultural significance than has been acknowledged heretofore.