An Introduction to Aesthetic Phenomenology and English Literature from the Eighteenth Century to Romanticism

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An Introduction to Aesthetic Phenomenology and English Literature from the Eighteenth Century to Romanticism Being and the Imaginary: An Introduction to Aesthetic Phenomenology and English Literature from the Eighteenth Century to Romanticism Author: Thomas R. Simons Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/1968 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2009 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Boston College The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Department of English BEING AND THE IMAGINARY: AN INTRODUCTION TO AESTHETIC PHENOMENOLOGY AND ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TO ROMANTICISM a dissertation by THOMAS R. SIMONS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2009 © copyright by THOMAS RICHARD SIMONS 2009 Being and the Imaginary: An Introduction to Aesthetic Phenomenology and English Literature from the Eighteenth Century to Romanticism (Abstract) By Thomas R. Simons, Boston College Committee Chair James Najarian This investigation outlines and applies what I have termed Aesthetic Phenomenology – a method of interdisciplinary criticism founded on the intersections of Martin Heidegger’s existential phenomenology, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics, and Wolfgang Iser’s literary anthropology. This study traces the articulation of Dasein’s fundamental ontological structures outlined in Heidegger’s philosophy. A concern with Dasein and the issue of its Being, specifically in relation to the aesthetic, are prominently foregrounded in many works of eighteenth-century and Romantic period English literature. Hence conceptions and investigations of the imagination become central during this period. Yet the idea of the imagination itself as a faculty is amended and supplemented when it is brought into play with what Iser terms “the imaginary,” which is conceived as the domain of possible worlds and modes of Being. In the first chapter, “Aesthetic Phenomenology: A Critical Encounter,” I outline how a phenomenologically grounded aesthetic must account for the interplay of the domains of the artist, artwork, and recipient in what I call an “aesthetic equation.” The second chapter, “Between Fundamental Ontology and the Imaginary: A Genealogy of Aesthetic Phenomenology,” traces the principle landmarks defining the topography of our investigation. “The Aesthetics of Insein” deals with how Being is projected and articulated in regards to Heidegger’s conceptions of “understanding,” “interpretation,” and “worlding,” as well as his distinction between the “real” and “reality.” “The Aesthetics of Attunement” is concerned with the opposition between everyday and authentic Being and the quality of aesthetic experience as both Erlebnis and Erfahrung. The aesthetic functions as an analogue to Heidegger’s conception of “conscience” as a “call” which leads to Being becoming “resolute” and taking up the path to its “authentic,” ownmost self and returning to its “there.” In “The Undiscovered Country and the Mortal Bourne: There Be Monsters,” I delve into the potentially negative side of the imaginary and discuss the implications of, and dangers inherent in, the transgressive qualities of the aesthetic. The writings of Samuel Johnson are explicitly guided by the ontological and moral issue of the choice of life. The first part of the chapter measures Johnson’s “ontological surveys,” which address Dasein’s range of possible attunements, specifically as conducted in the poems “London” (1738), “The Vanity of Human Wishes” (1749), and “On the Death of Doctor Robert Levet” (1782). In “The Temporality of Idleness: Aesthetic Ramblers, Adventurers, and Idlers and the Issue of Authenticity,” I consider both the negative and positive aspects of idleness as attunement, which recurs in Johnson’s periodical essays. The next section, “The Domain of the Aesthetic in Johnson’s Criticism,” posits that for Johnson the aesthetic provides a realm wherein a range of possible projections of Being are disclosed. The final section, “The Devouring Imaginary and the Struggle of Resolution,” investigates the obverse side of Johnson’s relationship to the imagination and the imaginary. As the leading philosopher of the imagination in England during this period, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poetry and prose is directly engaged with the issue of Dasein’s ontological projection and the disclosure of horizons of Being. “The Imagination vs. the Imaginary,” deals first with what I term the “voluntary imagination” as it is revealed in Coleridge’s so-called “conversation poems” as a form of Erlebnis. The obverse side of the voluntary imagination is the “compulsory imaginary,” which in a form of experience conceived as Erfahrung, the contours and consequences of which are drawn out through a readings of “Fears in Solitude” (1798), The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798 / 1834), and “Kubla Khan” (1797-1799?). The awareness of the failure of the imagination to order experience and life becomes evident in Coleridge’s “Black Period” poems: Dejection: An Ode (1802), Constancy to an Ideal Object (1804-7), Ne Plus Ultra (1811), and Limbo (1811). Here the imagination as creator and site of joy is replaced by the abyss of the imaginary. Coleridge’s imaginative failure eventuates his pursuit of what I call the “Philosophic Imaginary” – a process initiated in the Biographia Literaria (1817). The Coleridge section concludes with a consideration of the philosophic imaginary’s legacy as revealed in essays about Coleridge by Algernon Charles Swinburne, Walter Pater, and Arthur Symons. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS At the end of a long undertaking, when one pauses to recollect the entire process from a perspective of (at least momentary) completion, it is fitting to acknowledge those without whose participation the project itself would have been impossible – so here I pause to recognize those without whom this dissertation would never have been completed. First, I thank James Najarian for his participation in my oral exams and stepping up to take on the responsibility of directing my dissertation after the passing of Father J. Robert Barth – and especially for his timely efforts traversing hazardous bureaucratic seas when a committee crisis struck. Next I would like to thank my two readers: Dennis Taylor for his careful reading of the manuscript, his encouraging comments, and his insightful connections between the main foci of my dissertation and its wider religious implications; and Jeffrey Hanson, who emigrated from the Philosophy department and brought a true philosophical rigor and understanding (as well as a copy editor’s eye) to his reading. My wife Junko for conscientiously proof-reading the final manuscript – Junko, who nine years ago (and seemingly only yesterday) left all she had known behind and risked everything by trusting her heart and coming with me from Wisconsin to Boston, has done so much for me that any outward show of appreciation is but a pale shadow of my true obligation. Finally (though hardly least), I thank Professor John. L. Mahoney, who exemplifies in the highest degree what Dr. Samuel Johnson holds forth as the proper “Character & Duty of an Academick.” From my first day at Boston College, Mr. Mahoney has fathered me through my doctoral career; and I am happy and proud to have him as a mentor, colleague, and friend. i IN MEMORY OF J. Robert Barth, S.J. DEDICATED TO Junko, my wife Without whom everything would be nothing: Like the wind through winter trees, Or a new moon in the midnight sky... ii CONTENTS I. Aesthetic Phenomenology: A Critical Encounter … 1 II. Between Fundamental Ontology and the Imaginary: A Genealogy of Aesthetic Phenomenology a. The Aesthetics of Insein i. Dasein and the Articulation of Being … 25 ii. Aesthetic Worlds: The Real and Reality … 38 iii. Imagination and the Imaginary … 49 b. The Aesthetics of Authenticity i. The Busy-ness of the World and its Discontents: Everydayness and the “They” … 76 ii. The Aesthetic as Erfahrung: The Call and the Moment of Vision … 94 c. The Undiscovered Country and the Mortal Bourne: There Be Monsters… … 120 III. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) a. Ontological Surveys: The Dilemma of Attunement … 133 i. Aesthetic Appropriation and London: A Poem in Imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal (1738) … 148 ii. The Orbit of Being and The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) … 163 iii. An Axis of Being and “On the Death of Dr. Robert Levet” (1782) … 179 b. The Temporality of Idleness: Aesthetic Ramblers, Adventurers, and Idlers and the Issue of Authenticity … 183 c. The Domain of the Aesthetic in Johnson’s Criticism ... 209 d. The Devouring Imaginary and the Struggle of Resolution ... 234 IV. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) a. The Imagination vs. the Imaginary ... 259 i. The Voluntary Imagination: Erlebnis and the “Conversation Poems” ... 268 ii. The Compulsory Imaginary: Erfahrung and Exile 1. The Influx of the Imaginary and “Fears in Solitude: Written in April 1798, During the Alarm of an Invasion” (1798) ... 278 2. Con-versions in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798 / 1834) ... 283 3. The Experience of the Imaginary As Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: “Kubla Khan, or a Vision in a Dream” (1797-1799?) ... 306 b. The Pains of the Aesthetic: The “Black Period” Poems ... 320 i. The Measure of Stasis and the Void Within: “Limbo: A Fragment” (1811) and “Ne Plus Ultra” (1811, or later) ... 325 ii. Rejection, Dis-illusion, and Dissolution: Reading “Dejection: An Ode” (1802) Against “Constancy to an Ideal Object” (1804 [1828]) ... 340 c. The Philosophic Imaginary ... 352 i. Philosophic Bildung in the Biographia Literaria, or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions (1817) ... 363 ii. The Concealed Storehouse: The Philosophic Imaginary and Coleridge’s Legacy ... 399 V. Aesthetics as Self-Con-frontation: Coming Home to Ourselves ... 406 WORKS CITED ... 425 iii ABBREVIATIONS Act R Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U Pr., 1978). AR Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, ed. John Beer, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 9 (Princeton: Princeton U Pr., 1993). ASJ Walter Jackson Bate, The Achievement of Samuel Johnson (New York: Oxford U Pr., 1961).
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