ENLIGHTENMENT PHENOMENOLOGY: THE FOCALIZATION OF PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE IN EIGHTEENTH- CENTURY URBAN NARRATIVE by JOSHUA ISRAEL FESI A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School—New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Literatures in English Written under the direction of Colin Jager And approved by _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey October 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Enlightenment Phenomenology: The Focalization of Perceptual Experience in Eighteenth-Century Urban Narrative by JOSHUA ISRAEL FESI Dissertation Director: Colin Jager This dissertation examines the development of focalization as it occurs in urban narratives over the course of the British eighteenth century, specifically urban observer narratives which foreground modal shifts between external and internal perspectives, which, in the words of cognitive linguist Ronald Langacker, “objectify” an otherwise peripheral observer. Drawing from a range of literary genres that include early urban satires, periodicals by Edward Ward and Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, prints by William Hogarth, and novels by Frances Burney and Jane Austen, my dissertation situates narratological innovations in focalization within a broader history of ideas – that of phenomenological inquiry. I argue that eighteenth-century urban narratives offer an alternative to contemporaneous empiricist epistemologies, which model perception as fundamentally passive and disembodied, by modeling phenomenological concerns such as active perception, delimited attention, pre-reflective consciousness, social attunement, and everyday being-in-the-world. ii DEDICATION To Samuel David. Love can touch us one time And last for a lifetime And never let go ‘til we’re gone. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to my director Dr. Colin Jager, for dedicating his time to this project and providing me with the direction and encouragement I needed to finish. Also, my deepest appreciation to my committee members, Drs. Michael McKeon, William Galperin, and Jonathan Kramnick, for their invaluable insights and guidance. Many thanks to my professors, Drs. Lynn Festa, David Kurnick, Richard Dienst, Chris Iannini, Paula McDowell, for overseeing my academic growth at Rutgers. My commitment to this project was sustained throughout the years by the intellectual rigors of conversation with my friends and colleagues: Phil, Tavi, Debapriya, Lizzie, Tony, John, Greg, Naomi, Ja Yun, Omri, Sascha, Princess Gavy Kaleidoscope, Mister Trouble, Carlo Maria, Cüpcakke, Kosmic, Amichai, Robert, Vlada, Adam, Bruno, and, of course, Anton. Thank you to everyone who supported my efforts, emotionally and financially: Mom, Dad, Katie, William, Michael, Leah and Chris, Jessica, Haruka and my twin brother Jeremy. And, finally, this dissertation could never have been realized without the love, friendship, and incredible generosity of my dear friends, Chris and Misha; I am forever in your debt. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………... ii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………... iii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………. iv Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………. v List of Illustrations………………………………………………………………………. vii Introduction. Histories of Immediate Experience………………………………………… 1 1. Structuring Experience………….....……………...…………………………...1 2. Activating Experience……………….…………………………………….......3 3. History of Philosophy: The Shades of Perceptual Awareness…………….… 11 4. History of Narratology I: The Immersive Reflector-Self……………….…....19 5. History of Narratology II: The Perceptual Scene……….………..…………. 24 6. History of the City: The Ground of Observational Experience…….……..… 34 Chapter 1. Ground Rules: The Empirical Periphery in The London Spy and Spectator....44 1. Narrating the Speed of the Urban Everyday…………………...….………….. 44 1-1. Iterative Frequency and the Watchman’s Habituation……………....47 1-2. Singulative Frequency and the Naïve’s Inexperience………...……..53 2. Locke’s Naïve Ideas of Passivity……...…………………………………...….59 3. Everydayness Obtruding in The London Spy…………………………….……64 4. Peripheral Pleasures in The Spectator……………………...………………………76 5. Seer Unseen, Seer Seen…………………...…………………………………...85 Chapter 2. Picturing Noise: The Limits of Attention in Hogarth’s Prints………….…… 91 1-1. The Ideas of Beauty…………………………………………………………92 v 1-2. The Movements of Interest………..………………………………………... 98 1-3. Ut Pictura Poesis…………………………………………………………...103 2-1. The Tracing of the Instant…………………………………………….…... 110 2-2. The Crowding of the Instant………………………………………………. 118 2-3. Picturing the Instant as Noise……………………………………………... 129 2-4. The Urban to the Everyday………………………………………………... 135 Chapter 3. Divided Selves: Economies of Attention in Smith and Burney……………. 144 1-1. Mindreading and the Spectator’s Perspectives……………………………. 144 1-2. The Splintered Stage of Spectator and Actor………………………...…… 160 2-1. Performance Anxiety and Displacement………………………………….. 167 2-2. Situating Self, Spatializing Desire………………………………………… 182 Chapter 4. Perpetual Estrangement: Truth and World-Sharing in Persuasion………… 202 1. Subordination and Splitting at the Periphery………………………………... 203 2. The Silence of Pre-Reflective Speech………………………………………..209 3. Truths Spoken and Unspoken……………………………………………...... 217 4. Present Absence, Absent Presence……………………………………...…... 232 5. Sociability, Sense, and Surrounding Noise………………………………….. 243 Coda. A Brief History of Cruising…………………………………………………....... 250 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………… 256 vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Hudibras’ First Adventure (1725) by William Hogarth…………………………… 116 2. The True Maner of the Execution of … Earle of Strafford by Wenceslaus Hollar.... 120 3. The First Stage of Cruelty (1750) by William Hogarth……………………………. 122 4. Southwark Fair. 1734) by William Hogarth……………………………………….. 126 5. The Enrag’d Musician (1741) by William Hogarth………………………………...130 6. A Chorus of Singers (1733) by William Hogarth…………………………………...132 7. An Election Entertainment (1755) by William Hogarth…………………………… 140 8. The Laughing Audience (1733) by William Hogarth………………………………. 142 vii 1 Introduction. Histories of Immediate Experience These are the things that for ever interrupt the process upon which I am eternally engaged of finding some perfect phrase that fits this very moment exactly. Virginia Woolf, The Waves1 1. Structuring Experience Can experience have a form? Can it be said to have a specific structure? In everyday conversation, when we discuss our own experience, we seem to refer to something so personal, so intimate, so particularized yet so limitlessly multidimensional, it might seem absurd to raise such a question. How can my experience, the full range of my sensory, emotional, intellectual, and social interactions in the world, be confined within the limits of form, or abstract structure? When we are infants born into the world, we experience that world. We continue to experience the world as we move through each stage of development, from adolescence to adulthood. Experience is basic to our life as human beings, yet it is hardly exclusive to humankind. Innumerable non-human creatures also experience the world, perceive the world and engage with it, even if they do not refer to their experiences through language. Surely something so fundamental, so seemingly universal to animal life, exists without reference to language, to form, to history. And yet it is possible to trace the history of experience as part of the history of cultural forms, a history of indicating and communicating various aspects of experience in highly specified ways. For how is experience to be reflected on as such, even discussed as such, without being formulated within the structuring terms of a shared language or cultural form? Indeed, as I will explore through the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, and the tradition 1Virginia Woolf. The Waves (Ware: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 2000) 37. 2 of linguistic narratology informed by Ricoeur’s philosophy, our everyday use of language itself provides an organization of our experience into meaningful statements, as actions, propositions, descriptions. This dissertation attempts to trace a cultural history of experience that, through the development of certain techniques of focalization in eighteenth-century narrative, builds upon this structuring premise inherent in everyday language. I weave together a cultural history of urban development and a narrratological history of focalization with a philosophical pre-history of phenomenology. By tracing the development and experimentation of focalization in eighteenth-century British urban narratives, I hope to trace the history of a cultural transformation in the way that narratives model everyday, phenomenal experience. In the project that follows, I highlight key passages of focalization in the works examined, forgoing many other narrative features to attend to a few choice moments— important moments, passing moments. The passages of narration that I highlight are rarely foregrounded by their authors as formally noteworthy, let alone as philosophically profound. While many of the authors I examine are in explicit dialogue with contemporary philosophical debates, very few would posit their techniques of narration as direct contributions to philosophical discussions of being, perceiving,