DOCSLIB.ORG

Abroon, Fazel (1998) Ontological Unity and Empirical Diversity in Shelley's Thought: with Reference to Ibn Arabi's Theory of Imagination

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Abroon, Fazel (1998) Ontological Unity and Empirical Diversity in Shelley's Thought: with Reference to Ibn Arabi's Theory of Imagination Abroon, Fazel (1998) Ontological unity and empirical diversity in Shelley's thought: with reference to Ibn Arabi's theory of imagination. PhD thesis http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3949/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Ontological Unity and Empirical Diversity in Shelley's Thought With Reference to Ibn Arabi's Theory of Imagination By Fazel Abroon Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Under the Supervision of Professor J. Drummond Bone Professor D. Gareth Walters Department of English Literature Faculty of Arts University of Glasgow March 1998 11 Dedication To my wife, a constant source of inspiration, whose unconditional love, indefatigable encouragement, and continuous support and appreciation saw me through the most difficult stages of this project. iii Abstract The key to Shelley's thought system lies in understanding that the thing and its opposite, the idea and its contrary, are brought together simultaneously. Shelley tries to resolve in one way or another the contradiction between transcendentalism and immanence, essentialism and socialism, and finally thought and object. He makes the unity of life his manifesto and yet does not deny the diversity of beings. The ontological clearly has a place within his system and nonetheless the phenomena are considered epistemological divisions, non-essential and insubstantial. He believes in the existence of a comprehensive sign system with no transcendent meaning and yet speaks of an absolute incomprehensibility of a transcendent being which defies words and signs. In short, beings for him are only relationships with no essence, and existence is still one essence in which none of these relations holds true. In harnessing the contraries Shelley's thought cannot be categorised as reductionist, dialectical, or deconstructionist. The logic he follows denies neither of the two opposites nor does it link them dialectically through accepting a third element, but resolves the opposition through a shift of perspective. Existence is both transcendent and immanent, essential and relational, and comprehensible and ineffable. This dissertation attempts to show that from such a perspective the rhetorical or deconstructive coincides with the grammatical or the metaphysical. Although the opposition set by the deconstructionists between the rhetorical and the grammatical readings is assumed by Shelley to exist between the metaphorical and the literal, nevertheless he accepts them as two epistemes; the ontological remains existing but unreadable, and the text is only its expression. Imagination, in its Shelleyan definition, is at the core and basis of this logic. It is the ground of the shift of perspective and in its two forms, the universal and the IV individual, is the plane where the transcendent is the immanent and the spiritual is the material. For Shelley imagination works within the text and is circular in the sense that it conceives only the metaphorical which is self referential, and not the literal which is linear and marked by 'from', the sign, and 'to', the meaning. What this thesis attempts, however, is to show that imagination is not dialectical in the sense of bringing the opposites together, but that it makes the opposites one by shifting the perspective: the metaphoric is the literal which has lost its generative power, and the literal is a metaphor, albeit a dead one. The other important point is that all that imagination does is to shift the perspective between the literal and the metaphoric: all is done within the text and sign system. It does not 'link' the transcendent with the phenomenal in the sense of putting the ontological within a sign system. On the contrary it is anti-ontological in the sense of being the power which purges the phenomena from the traces of essence or presence. The focus of the first chapter comprises an outline of the principal constituents of Romanticism in general as a mode of thought. The second is concerned with Shelley'S Romantic world view which is understood to be based on the integrity of the opposites mentioned above and on the unity of sign and meaning reflected in self­ referential metaphor. The world view presented is dynamic--metaphor does not cease from generating meaning; integrative--there is a unity between metaphor and its meaning in being self-referential; and interpretative--there is no one definite meaning for metaphor and it urges ongoing reinterpretation. In the third chapter, imagination is discussed in its Shelleyan context as the place where boundaries between opposites collapse and the fragmented world is reintegrated. It is the locus where symbols are created and things are emptied of their ontological existence and interpreted as metaphorical relationships. In the fourth chapter there is a discussion of the forces that disrupt the metaphoric or imaginative outlook, which Shelley believes man originally had, and which turn the symbols into literal facts and the metaphors into dead metaphors. And finally, in the fifth chapter Necessity, in its two forms, literal and v metaphoric, is discussed as a corollary to such an integrative and imaginative thought system. The reading which is given makes extensive use of the ideas of the great theosophist, Ibn Arabi, and especially of his theories on the 'Oneness of Being', the basis of his integrative system; Imagination, the locus of symbolic meaning and shift of perspective; and 'Continual Creation', or the generative power of sign making and sign interpretation. In order to show the effectiveness of this reading, parallels are drawn with the philosophies of Spinoza, Locke, Hume, and Kant, which were influential in the emergence of Romantic Philosophy. Vi Table of Contents Abstract. ................................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgement ................................................................................. '" ............................. ix CHAPTER ONE: Romanticism: A Historical Representation of a Metaphoric World View ..................................................................................................... 1 1. The Romantic World: Self-referential Symbol and Metaphoric Dialectic ..................................................................................................................... 2 II. Things as they are: The Romantic Noumenal Perception ..................................... 17 III. Romanticism: A Historical Representation of an Innate Perspective ................................................................................................................. 38 IV. Oriental Imagination and Shift of Perspective ..................................................... 42 V. The Shelleyan Metaphor: A World in Making ..................................................... 53 VI. Romantic Affinities: Following the Traces ......................................................... 59 Notes .......................................................................................................................... 88 CHAPTER TWO: Transcendent and Immanent Power: The Concept of one Life and the Diversity of Beings in Shelley's World View ........................................ 91 1. The 'Unknown Power' and Shelley's Conception of Unity ..................................... 92 II. The 'Unknown Power' and the Plotinian One and its Emanation .......................... 110 III. The 'Unknown Power' and Spinoza's Substance and its Modes .......................... 113 IV. The 'Unknown Power' and Derrida's Differance ................................................. 117 V. The 'Unknown Power' and Ibn Arabi's Reality and its Names and Attributes ................................................................................................................... 126 VI. Case Study I: 'Mont Blanc': Transcendence in Shelley's Relational System ........................................................................................................................ 136 VII. Case Study II: The Triumph of Life: The Endless Question of Life and Meaning .............................................................................................................. 158 VB Notes .......................................................................................................................... 164 CHAPTER THREE: Imagination: Interpreting the Signs and Reading the Relationships .................................................................................................................. 166 I. Imagination: An Early Assessment ........................................................................ 167 II. Locke and Imagination as the Power of Forming Complex Ideas ........................ 169 III. Hume and Imagination as the Foundation of Thoughts and Actions ......................................................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Romantic Economist
    This page intentionally left blank THE ROMANTIC ECONOMIST Since economies are dynamic processes driven by creativity, social norms and emotions, as well as rational calculation, why do econo- mists largely study them through the prism of static equilibrium models and narrow rationalistic assumptions? Economic activity is as much a function of imagination and social sentiments as of the rational optimisation of given preferences and goods. Richard Bronk argues that economists can best model and explain these creative and social aspects of markets by using new structuring assumptions and metaphors derived from the poetry and philosophy of the Romantics. By bridging the divide between literature and science, and between Romanticism and narrow forms of rationalism, economists can access grounding assumptions, models and research methods suitable for comprehending the creativity and social dimensions of economic activity. This is a guide to how economists and other social scientists can broaden their analytical repertoire to encompass the vital role of sentiments, language and imagination. Educated at Merton College, Oxford, Richard Bronk gained a first class degree in Classics and Philosophy. He spent the first seventeen years of his career working in the City of London, where he acquired a wide expertise in international economics, business and politics. His first book, Progress and the Invisible Hand (1998) was well received critically, and anticipated millennial angst about the increasingly strained relationship between economic growth and progress in wel- fare. Having returned to academic life in 2000, Bronk is now a writer and part-time academic. richard bronk is currently a Visiting Fellow in the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
    [Show full text]
  • Ecologies of Contemplation in British Romantic Poetry
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center 2-2021 The Lodge in the Wilderness: Ecologies of Contemplation in British Romantic Poetry Sean M. Nolan The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4185 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS: ECOLOGIES OF CONTEMPLATION IN BRITISH ROMANTIC POETRY by SEAN NOLAN A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2021 © 2020 Sean Nolan All Rights Reserved ii The Lodge in the Wilderness: Ecologies of Contemplation in British Romantic Poetry by Sean Nolan This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________________ ____________________________________ Date Nancy Yousef Chair of Examining Committee _______________________ ____________________________________ Date Kandice Chuh Executive Officer Supervisory Committee Alexander Schlutz Alan Vardy Nancy Yousef THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT The Lodge in the Wilderness: Ecologies of Contemplation in British Romantic Poetry by Sean Nolan Advisor: Nancy Yousef This dissertation argues that contemplation is often overlooked in studies of British Romantic poetry. By the late 1700s, changing commercial and agricultural practices, industrialism, secularization, and utilitarianism emphasizing industriousness coalesced to uproot established discourses of selfhood and leisure, and effected crises of individuation in Romantic poetry and poetics.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond Excess Chicago
    Edinburgh Research Explorer Beyond excess Citation for published version: Milnes, T 2015, 'Beyond excess: Romanticism, surplus and trust', College Literature, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 683- 698. https://doi.org/10.1353/lit.2015.0045 Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.1353/lit.2015.0045 Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Peer reviewed version Published In: College Literature Publisher Rights Statement: ©Milnes, T. (2015). Beyond Excess: Romanticism, Surplus and Trust. John Hopkins University Press and West Chester University of Pennsylvania. This article first appeared in College Literature. General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 02. Oct. 2021 Beyond Excess: Romanticism, Surplus and Trust Tim Milnes is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of The Truth about Romanticism: Pragmatism and Idealism in Keats, Shelley, Coleridge (Cambridge University Press, 2010), Knowledge and Indifference in English Romantic Prose (Cambridge University Press, 2003), and the co-editor (with Kerry Sinanan) of Romanticism, Sincerity, and Authenticity (Palgrave, 2010).
    [Show full text]
  • Appendix a Empiricism and Evangelicalism 1
    Appendix A Empiricism and Evangelicalism: A Combination of Romanticism T he twin pioneers of transatlantic revivalism, John Wesley (1703– 1791) and Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), absorbed and spiritual- ized the sensationalist epistemology of John Locke (1632–1704) and then passed along to the nineteenth century their empirical idiom of evangelical expression. As a direct as well as indirect result of this com- plex process of cultural osmosis, such British Romantics as William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats could conceive of the physical senses as por- tals to epiphany and not just as analogies of spiritual insight. As an illustrative Anglo-American trio of late-Romantic writers, Thomas Carlyle, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Ralph Waldo Emerson contin- ued to blend what Wordsworth called “the language of the sense” with what Coleridge, anticipating the fin-de-siè cle apprehension of art as religion, and vice versa, called “poetic faith.” 1 Emily Dickinson (1830–1886), herself as much of a late-Romantic as of a Victorian- American (anti-Romantic) or pre-Modern poet, also gravitated toward the amalgamation of scientific method with the varieties of religious experience.2 Like her precursors and contemporaries on the high- to late-Romantic arc of literary history, the ark back and forth across the Atlantic, Dickinson grew more apt to expect truth, joy, and grace, like Locke, Wesley, and Edwards, than like Marx, Nietzsche, or Freud to suspect consciousness as false. Thus, as distinct from Euro-continental Romanticism of either a French rationalist or a German idealist stripe, Anglo-American Romanticism generated language at once empirical and evangelical.
    [Show full text]
  • Unit 1 Romanticism
    UNIT 1 ROMANTICISM Structure Objectives Introduction Defining Romanticism The Romantic Epistemology The Romantic Theory of Art Imagination Inspiration Organicism Forms of Poetry Some Modernist and Post-Shcturalist Views of Romanticism Let Us Sum Up Key Figures Questions Suggested Readings 1.0 OBJECTIVES In this unit we shall offer you a broad introduction to the general concerns that went- into the shaping of British nineteenth century Romanticism. Subsequent units take up the critical ideas of William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and P.B. Shalley. Here we shall talk of the general thrust ofthe movement as a whole. 1.1 INTRODUCTION In its most coherent early form, as it emerged in the 1790's in Germany and Britaln, Romanticism is generally treated under the head 'the Romantic Movement' or ' Romantic Revival'. The stress was mainly on freedom of individual self-expression. The ordered rationality of the preceding age (the Augustan Period) was viewed as mechanical, impersonal and artificial. The new preoccupations came to be sincerity, spontaneity and originality. These replaced the decorous mit tat ion of classical models upon which neo-classicists like Dryden, Pope and Johnson placed much value. The turn now was toward emotion and inspiration seeing the artist as a kind of prophet or a genius also came in the wake of such a general thrust. Most of the Romantic poets saw themselves as free spirits expressing their own imaginative truth. 1.2 DEFINING ROMANTICISM Romantic criticism serves as a convenient title for a body of critical writing with a particular historical background and certain broad features which define its special nature.
    [Show full text]
  • Resounding Footnotes Understanding the Pre-Romantics Through The
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by DiscoverArchive Resounding Footnotes Understanding the Pre-Romantics Through the Footer Travis Snyder Submitted to the Department of English, Vanderbilt University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in the Major, April 13, 2012 Snyder 2 No one champions the label “pre-romantic,” yet it seems to be the accepted nomenclature to refer to poets such as Cowper, Goldsmith, Collins, and Gray. When the Macmillan Casebook Series published its installment to catalogue “those poets,” the ones who weren’t yet Romantics but had ceased to be identifiable as Augustan, they settled with the title Pre-Romanticism in English Poetry of the Eighteenth Century. If you try a Wikipedia search for this era of poets, you will be sorely disappointed; but the trusty Encyclopedia Britannica has them entered as “Pre- Romanticism, cultural movement in Europe from about the 1740s onward that preceded and presaged the artistic movement known as Romanticism” (Encyclopedia Britannica Online). Although the folks at the Encyclopedia Britannica may be an exception to the rule, it is my belief that few scholars would disagree with Northrop Frye when he says: “Not only did the ‘pre-romantics’ not know that the Romantic movement was going to succeed them, but there has probably never been a case on record of a poet’s having regarded a later poet’s work as the fulfillment of his own” (Frye 144). Although pre-Romantic is the preferred term, my sense is that within the 18th century community its use is rather disingenuous, and merely to indicate “those poets” who are neither claimed by the Augustan nor Romantic canon.
    [Show full text]
  • Coleridge and Wordsworth
    Durham E-Theses Inescapable choice: Wallace Stevens's new Romanticism and English romantic poetry Tomioka, Noriko How to cite: Tomioka, Noriko (2006) Inescapable choice: Wallace Stevens's new Romanticism and English romantic poetry, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2607/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Inescapable Choice: Wallace Stevens's New Romanticism and English Romantic Poetry The copyright of this thesis rests with the author or the university to which It was submitted. No quotation from It, or lnfonnatlon derived from It may be published without the prior written consent of the author or university, and any lnfonnatlon derived from It should be acknowledged. Noriko Tomioka A thesis submitted to the University of Durham in accordance with the regulations for admittance to the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Studies University of Durham September 2006 1 7 APR 2007 To my mother Out of this same light, out of the central mind, We make a dwelling in the evening air, In which being there together is enough.
    [Show full text]
  • GOLD-SPECKLED WINGS: Hawthorne and the English Romantics
    GOLD-SPECKLED WINGS: Hawthorne and the English Romantics A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the School of Arts and Science Morehead State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree Master of English by Judith E. Carr-Back May 4, 1990 Accepted by the faculty of the School of Arts & Science , Morehead State University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Engjisb degree. Master's Committee: 5-h-90 Date ii GOLD-SPECKLED WINGS: Hawthorne and the English Romantics Judith Carr-Back Morehead State University Director of Thesis: This study of Hawthorne seeks to link his theories and practice of the imagination to English Romanticism. Sources for establishing this link include for the English Romantics: Wordsworth's Excursion, The Prelude, "Tintern Abbey,• "The Cumberland Beggar,• "Resolution and Independence," and prefaces, both to the "Lyrical Ballads" and to the 1815 edition of Collected Poems; Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, "The Eolian Harp," iii "Kubla Khan," "This Lime-Tree Bower, My Prison," "Frost at Midnight," "The Nightingale," and "Dejection: An Ode;" and Shelley's "Defense of Poetry" and "Alastor." Of Hawthorne's works, the sources are The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, "The Haunted Mind," "The Wed~ing Knell," "Mosses From an Old Manse," "Rappaccini's Daughter,• "Ethan Brand," "Young Goodman. Brown," and '"'Artist of the Beautiful." Secondary sources include literary criticism dealing with both English Romantics and American literature written during the Romantic period, and most importantly, a compilation of Hawthorne's reading list which shows that he read works by most of the English Romantic poets and the complete works of the major English Romantic poets, Wordsworth and Coleridge.
    [Show full text]
  • Charlotte Turner Smith: a Harbinger of Romantic Poetry?
    CHARLOTTE TURNER SMITH: A HARBINGER OF ROMANTIC POETRY? A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY GÖKÇE SERT IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE SEPTEMBER 2018 Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences Prof. Dr. Tülin Gençöz Director I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bilal Kırkıcı Head of Department This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nurten Birlik Supervisor Examining Committee Members Prof. Dr. Hande Seber (Hacettepe Uni., IED) Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nurten Birlik (METU, FLE) Assoc. Prof. Dr. Margaret Sönmez (METU, FLE) Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nil Korkut Naykı (METU, FLE) Assist. Prof. Dr. Serkan Ertin (Kocaeli Uni., IDE) PLAGIARISM I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last name : Gökçe Sert Signature : iii ABSTRACT CHARLOTTE TURNER SMITH: A HARBINGER OF ROMANTIC POETRY? Sert, Gökçe Ph.D., Department of English Literature Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nurten Birlik September 2018, 229 pages Charlotte Smith, a prolific and prominent poet of the late 18th century, inspired many of her successors with the innovative poetic genres and subject matter that she introduced.
    [Show full text]
  • Download This PDF File
    ISSN: 2347-7474 International Journal Advances in Social Science and Humanities Available online at: www.ijassh.com CASE STUDY Romanticism in Europe -A Study of Romantic Poets with Special Reference to William Wordsworth’s the Lyrical Ballads Roshni Duhan* Teaching Assistant, IGNOU, Study Centre, Rohtak, India. Introduction Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and matter to form; romanticism subordinates form of intellectual movement that originated in Europe matter. Classicism stands for regimentation, toward the end of the 18th century. Various dates regulation, authority; Romanticism for are given for the Romantic period in British individuality, informality, freedom. literature, but here the publishing of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 is taken as the beginning, and the Nature of Romanticism crowning of Queen Victoria in 1837 as its end, even though, for example, William Wordsworth Defining the nature of Romanticism may be lived until 1850 and both Robert Burns and approached from the starting point of the primary William Blake published before 1798. The writers importance of the free expression of the feelings of of this period, however, "did not think of the artist. The importance the Romantics placed themselves as 'Romantics'" and the term was first on emotion is summed up in the remark of the used by critics of the Victorian period. German painter Caspar David Friedrich that "the Romanticism arrived later in other parts of the artist's feeling is his law". To William English-speaking world. William Blake is Wordsworth, poetry should begin as "the considered a seminal figure in the history of both spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," which the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.
    [Show full text]
  • Enduringcoleridge
    Enduring Coleridge: ‘The functions of comparison, judgement, and interpretation’ Alison Helen Cardinale A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University June 2016. © Copyright by Alison Helen Cardinale 2016 All Rights Reserved. 1 This thesis is completely my own original work. – Alison Cardinale 65,500 words. 2 Acknowledgements Thank you to my supervisor, Prof. Will Christie, for friendly conversation and for the kindness of an inquiring spirit. I acknowledge the generosity of your enduring the writing of my thesis with such unswerving geniality. I acknowledge my grandmother, Coraline Milne, who bequeathed me her literary passions. 3 Abstract My thesis, ‘Enduring Coleridge’, is a dialogic inquiry into poetic form in the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge that admits the non-semantic, even irrational, quality of Coleridge’s poetry to identify a dramatic juxtaposition of voices in an authentically Romantic critical methodology. My thesis considers Coleridge’s poetry and philosophical writing as an organic whole, sharing the same preoccupations and the same rhetorical and imaginative techniques, in order to recover and characterise an informing experience of poetic rapture involving intimations of divinity. It is vital to return to Coleridge to articulate a theory of poetry in an age in which ways of knowing about ourselves and the world have been claimed by philosophers in the field of neuroscience, whose extreme physicalism represents a developed version of the reductive empiricism emerging in Coleridge’s time. This thesis will attempt to unite different epistemic models of understanding to recover, through Coleridge’s own writings, a broader cosmology akin to that envisioned by Plato and the German Idealists who exerted such a powerful influence on his work.
    [Show full text]
  • Resounding Footnotes Understanding the Pre-Romantics Through The
    Resounding Footnotes Understanding the Pre-Romantics Through the Footer Travis Snyder Submitted to the Department of English, Vanderbilt University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in the Major, April 13, 2012 Snyder 2 No one champions the label “pre-romantic,” yet it seems to be the accepted nomenclature to refer to poets such as Cowper, Goldsmith, Collins, and Gray. When the Macmillan Casebook Series published its installment to catalogue “those poets,” the ones who weren’t yet Romantics but had ceased to be identifiable as Augustan, they settled with the title Pre-Romanticism in English Poetry of the Eighteenth Century. If you try a Wikipedia search for this era of poets, you will be sorely disappointed; but the trusty Encyclopedia Britannica has them entered as “Pre- Romanticism, cultural movement in Europe from about the 1740s onward that preceded and presaged the artistic movement known as Romanticism” (Encyclopedia Britannica Online). Although the folks at the Encyclopedia Britannica may be an exception to the rule, it is my belief that few scholars would disagree with Northrop Frye when he says: “Not only did the ‘pre-romantics’ not know that the Romantic movement was going to succeed them, but there has probably never been a case on record of a poet’s having regarded a later poet’s work as the fulfillment of his own” (Frye 144). Although pre-Romantic is the preferred term, my sense is that within the 18th century community its use is rather disingenuous, and merely to indicate “those poets” who are neither claimed by the Augustan nor Romantic canon.
    [Show full text]