Language of the Senses

McSweeney discusses the sensory acuity that informed Wordsworth''s, Coleridge''s, Thoreau''s, Whitman''s, and Dickinson''s finest achievements and then, when blunted by illness or age, contributed to an attenuation of their creative power. He supplies a "sensory profile" or sensory history for each author and through close readings shows how this profile affected their relationship to the external...