Early Modern Neurodivergence

Abstract

Early Modern Neurodivergence explains how what we nowadays call neurodivergence was understood, described, and lived in Europe during the era of 1550–1750. Focusing on texts from Britain, Spain, and Poland, this literary study centres neurodivergent experiences and ways of engaging with texts throughout. Through the Classical and Renaissance figure of Echo, the introduction lays out ‘reading for resonance’ as a useful way of approaching early modern neurodivergence. The four chapters explore: neurodivergent representation in Lope de Vega’s play La Dama Boba, stimming while reading Miguel de Cervantes’ novel Don Quijote, the sonnet sequence as a neurodivergent literary form (focusing on Jan Kochanowski’s Treny and Anne Lok’s A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner), and a practice-as-research project reading the 1747–1748 Scottish case about Idiocy, Blair v Blair as a piece of verbatim theatre. The book’s coda challenges Anglo-American claims that neurodiversity studies is a ‘new’ field and looks towards a future where all who want to be included are in this field and no one is left behind.