The field of disability studies has recently matured from its abstractly polemical origins to its current historicist orientation. This turn has allowed disability to become a key feature of mainstream contemporary literary scholarship. Romantic studies, though, has been relatively slow to adopt the new discourse. This essay offers a tentative explanation and a state-of-the-nascent-field assessment of Romantic-era disability studies. Applying theory to practice, I show how both literary criticism and disability studies by themselves miss the point of Mary Shelley's Romantic-era novel Frankenstein (1818). For example, a literary critical approach reads the theme of blindness as a metaphor for a kind of paradoxical insight, whereas a disability studies reading takes umbrage at the exploitation of the blind for narrative gain. Moving past this ideological impasse requires a more synthetic discourse that leverages the historicist turn of disability studies to model a more honest interpretation. By positioning the novel against Enlightenment theories of blindness, I argue that Shelley offers a more nuanced account of abnormal embodiment than disability scholars have traditionally allowed.

中文翻译：

---

浪漫主义时代的残疾研究的历史主义转向，或黑暗中的科学怪人

残疾研究领域最近已经从其抽象的辩论学起源发展到当前的历史主义取向。这一转变使残疾成为当代主流文学学术的主要特征。然而，浪漫主义研究相对较慢，无法接受新的论述。本文提供了对浪漫主义时代的残疾研究的初步解释和最新评估。我将理论应用到实践中，展示了文学批评和残疾研究本身如何错过玛丽·雪莱（Mary Shelley）的浪漫主义时代的小说《科学怪人》（Frankenstein）（1818）。例如，一种文学批评方法将盲目的主题理解为一种悖论性见解的隐喻，而对残疾的研究阅读则暗指为盲目性剥削而利用盲人。要摆脱这种意识形态的僵局，就需要一种更加综合的话语，该话语应利用历史学家对残疾研究的转变来模拟更诚实的解释。通过将小说与启蒙盲目理论相抵触，我认为雪莱提供了比残疾学者传统上允许的更为微妙的异常体现的解释。