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Towards a Poetics of Becoming: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's and John Keats's Aesthetics Between Idealism and Deconstruction

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Towards a Poetics of Becoming: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s and John Keats’s Aesthetics Between Idealism and Deconstruction Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Philosophischen Fakultät IV (Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften) der Universität Regensburg eingereicht von Charles NGIEWIH TEKE Alfons-Auer-Str. 4 93053 Regensburg Februar 2004 Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Rainer EMIG Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Dieter A. BERGER 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE DEDICATION .............................................................................................................. I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................... II ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................... VI English........................................................................................................................ VI German...................................................................................................................... VII French...................................................................................................................... VIII INTRODUCTION Aims of the Study......................................................................................................... 1 On the Relationship Between S. T. Coleridge and J. Keats.......................................... 5 Certain Critical Terms................................................................................................. 14 Romanticism............................................................................................................... 14 First and Second Generation Romantics..................................................................... 15 The Concept of the Imagination................................................................................. 17 Reality and Truth........................................................................................................ 19 Beauty......................................................................................................................... 22 The Creative Process.................................................................................................. 22 Romantic Idealism and Romantic Visionary Criticism.............................................. 23 The Poetics of Becoming............................................................................................ 25 Constructive Deferral.................................................................................................. 25 Deconstruction............................................................................................................ 26 Statement of Hypothesis............................................................................................. 27 Chapter Synopsis........................................................................................................ 28 CHAPTER ONE REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STATEMENT OF RESEARCH Introduction................................................................................................................35 The Dynamics of Spirit.............................................................................................. 37 The Psychological Periphery of Self.......................................................................... 70 Historicising Romanticism......................................................................................... 85 Subverting Visionary Romanticism: (De)Construction........................................... ..98 Statement of Research.............................................................................................. 118 CHAPTER TWO S. T. COLERIDGE: METAPHYSICAL ECOLOGY: NATURE AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL REALM Introduction.............................................................................................................. 124 Existing Notions on Nature and Spirituality Prior to the Romantic Period............. 129 Coleridge’s Quest for Distinction: His Metaphysics of Nature and the Philosophy of Becoming................................................................................................................. 138 Coleridge and German Idealism and Romanticism: The Influences........................ 147 The Search for Unity in a Heterogeneous Universe and the Philosophy of Becoming.......................................................…...................................................... 162 Praxis: Poetry, Philosophy, Spiritual Ecstasy and Becoming.................................. 174 The Philosophical Dispositions of Irony, Fragmentation and Complexity.............. 186 2 CHAPTER THREE S. T. COLERIDGE: PSYCHOLOGICAL INTROSPECTION AND RETROSPECTION: THE SELF IN TIME Introduction.............................................................................................................. 210 The Myth of Childhood in English Romanticism.................................................... 213 The Psychological Bases of Coleridge’s Embattled Psychic Life........................... 221 Coleridge’s Self-Written Life: Poetic and Epistolary Self-Mirroring and the Philosophy of Becoming.......................................................................................... 229 The Psycho-Dynamics of Self-Definition and Self-Reconstruction with the Other 246 The Psychology of Narcissism: A Characteristic Trait in Coleridge?................................................................................................................ 262 CHAPTER FOUR KEATS’S NATURE-CONSCIOUSNESS AND MYTHOPOETIC EXPERIENCE: SELF-SEEKING FOR AESTHETIC INDENTITY Keats’s Nature-Consciousness and Becoming... ..................................................... 269 Keats’s Mythopoetic Consciousness........................................................................ 282 Theoretical Considerations....................................................................................... 285 The Reception of Myth in English Romanticism..................................................... 291 Keats’s Myth-Revitalising and Myth-Making: Towards Achieving Aesthetic Identity..................................................................................................................... 304 Mythology and Ekphrasis: Visual Arts and Poetic Choices.................................... 332 CHAPTER FIVE KEATS AND THE GNOSTIC TRADITION: INNER SELF-SEARCHING AND BECOMING Introduction.............................................................................................................. 339 Towards a Definition: Gnosticism as a Mystical Clue to Self-knowledge and Self- redemption................................................................................................................ 346 Western Christian Orthodoxy and Eastern Mystical Traditions.............................. 361 Keats’s Gnostic Scheme: The Inner Search for a New Path and Prophetic Self- elevation................................................................................................................... 371 The Gnostic Implications of Keats’s Philosophy of Death...................................... 410 A Realistic Medium or a Poetico-Philosophical Speculation?................................. 415 CHAPTER SIX THE EROTIC AND SPIRITUAL MOTIVE: THE FEMALE IMAGE IN COLERIDGE’S AND KEATS’S POETIC EXPERIENCE AND BECOMING Introduction............................................................................................................... 421 The Present Absence and the Psycho-Dynamics of Sublimation............................. 426 Decentring Stereotypes: Prefigurative Modern Sexuality in Coleridge................... 446 Eroticism and Psycho-Spirituality: The Keatsian Dimension.................................. 457 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 478 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................... 489 3 DEDICATION To the memory of Professor John Akwe LAMBO and all the prematurely fallen intellectual and academic heroes. I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The present state of this research endeavour is a result of the contribution of number of persons and institutions who deserve to be acknowledged. My indebtedness first goes to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Rainer Emig for his meticulous and rigorous handling of the work. His supervision has been immense and invaluable. Not only has he sharpened my critical insight, straightened and strengthened my academic and intellectual convictions and ambitions, but he has equally increased my admiration for university teaching and professional consciousness. Without his facilitating of my financial and material situation as well, I might not have forged through till the very end. My appreciation and gratitude go to the entire staff of the Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistk, University of Regensburg. I am thinking particularly of Prof. Dr. Dieter A. Berger, who provided a second and enriching reading to my work, and made insightful suggestions which oriented the work towards its desired goal. I also greatly benefited from the Literature Research Seminar, which he organised and co-ordinated in the Summer Semester of the 2002/2003 academic year. I had the unique opportunity to present the project in its embryonic stage, and profited from the constructive remarks made by the members of staff in view of its completion.
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