This course explores the intersection of "literature" and "madness" in a range of British texts from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Readings will include literature of and about madness (case studies, medical, philosophical and sociological accounts); literary treatments of "mad" subjects (in works by Johnson, Coleridge, Shelley, Tennyson); poetry written by melancholic or insane but otherwise highly-regarded poets (Cowper, Smart, Clare); period philosophical writing about the mind and the imagination (Locke, Smith, Hartley, and Coleridge); and contemporary theory (including Freud, Klein, Foucault, Althusser). The course focuses on a period that, according to French theorist Michel Foucault, saw the development of distinctly modern ways of describing, classifying, and explaining madness-for example, as a disease that can be diagnosed through the careful interpretation of symptoms. Yet, in much literature of the period, the mad person-systematizer par excellence, interpreter gone amok-at once evades and mocks explanatory systems. We will explore this and other paradoxes, working toward speculative accounts of why "madness" becomes so closely linked to literary production during the period. Requirements: two 4- to 6-page essays and one 10-page essay; occasional short informal writing assignments; and one group oral project. Prerequisite: a 100-level English course, except 150. (1800-1900/1700-1900)