The Language of the Senses: Sensory-Perceptual Dynamics in Wordsworth, Coleridge, Thoreau, Whitman, and Dickinson

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and a
poet. He is the author of Calling Texas, Earth Prime, and Mind the Gap.

Kerry McSweeney’s book makes a profound contribution to the
understanding of poetry. He approaches Wordsworth, Coleridge, Thoreau,
Whitman, and Dickinson through the physiology of the senses, employing
scientific research on the subject. He works primarily through close
readings of the poems by his subjects, and never fails to illuminate the
evolving ways that the writers deal with the senses. One of the best
qualities of his writing is its concise quality: the book covers a great
deal in a short space. It is good to see a critical work resting on
science applied humanistically by a perceptive critic. He consciously
offers an alternative to the theoretical excesses of Deconstruction and
New Historicism. A concluding chapter on Hopkins and Tennyson makes it
clear that the method of McSweeney’s book could be extended to any
number of writers. The work has a very full bibliography and long,
interesting footnotes.