Swoon

Reviews / Votes

'In this absorbing study she [Naomi Booth] argues that being out for the count - eyes closed, ears deaf, pulse thready - functions as telling testimony in a range of narratives from Troilus and Criseyde to Fifty Shades of Grey by way of Dracula.'
TLS


"Booth's dizzyingly wide scope enables her to track how contemporary swoons reimagine, develop, or fall back on what has come before and to draw compelling arguments about the cultural, artistic and scientific contexts of each time period she considers; as she explains, 'a literary history of swooning is also a history of crux points for how we have imagined the body' (10). .. this work greatly advances our understanding of swoons in literature and their significance ... uncover[ing] new and surprising perspectives on what it means to pass out.
As a whole, Swoon might appeal most to researchers working on the medical humanities or the history of the emotions, but individual chapters would also reward those interested in a particular topic, text, or period. A fiction writer as well as an academic, Booth crafts prose which is pleasure to read, demonstrating a deftness with language and syntax which is thoughtful, lucid, and often playful. ... Swoon frequently illuminates ways that bodily and emotional vulnerability is understood differently for men and women; her exploration of falling unconscious thus makes us conscious not only of the perils and pleasures of dizzying aesthetic, affective and erotic experiences, but also of the received narratives that might diagnose us as sentimental, sensitive, or just sick."
The Spenser Review


'Naomi Booth's Swoon: A Poetics of Passing Out is a comprehensive and wide-ranging account of the literary history of swooning. ... Booth's excellent introduction explains why the wide perspective is necessary... the readings of the primary sources build upon each other in expert ways, illuminating similarities and defining differences... The evocative and nuanced readings of the swoon as "creative stimulus to dark imagining" ... lead the reader on a journey from bodily fainting to the soul's swoon... Booth's reading of the [Fifty Shades of Grey] trilogy is inspired and convincing, showing us exactly why it is important to include a work that revolves around "received ideas of gender submission" in a scholarly work.'
Women's Writing

'There are a number of strengths in this book, including the breadth of the texts examined, the depth of the analysis, and the astonishing variety of connections across genres and periods made in each chapter... Swoon is a readable, engaging, and enjoyable book, regardless of one's area of focus... Booth's Swoon is one of those monographs that is as enjoyable as it is useful because it is well written, has a thematic focus that allows for
the refraction of that theme across time, and can be read in whole or usefully assigned in single chapters to students, even advanced undergraduates.'
Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research -- .