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Poetry as a Way of Being: Poetics of Care in Heidegger, Emerson, Wordsworth, and Cavell Adam Bernard Clay Doctor of Philosophy The University of Edinburgh 2019 1 Lay Summary This work argues that care, particularly as German philosopher Martin Heidegger defines it, is a concept that is useful for the study of literature, especially poetry and poetics, and for the study of the history of ideas—notably ideas pertaining to literary theory and criticism. This thesis also contributes to academic discussions of works by Heidegger (1889-1976), by the American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), by the British poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850), and by the American philosopher Stanley Cavell (1926- 2018). Focusing chiefly on those four authors, I discuss the philosophical origins, legacies, and implications of the idea that poetry manifests care—which, simply put, means that poetry conveys a way of being, of relating to things and people. Chapter One discusses Heidegger’s ideas about poetry and about care, arguing that poetry as his later work describes it manifests what his early work calls authentic care. In other words, I show how, according to Heidegger, poetry conveys and fosters a respectful and affective attention to what things or people fundamentally are. Chapter Two turns to Emerson’s works and traces therein some of the origins of Heidegger’s ideas about poetry. I show how Emerson’s views on poetry anticipate Heidegger’s in several ways, and how, even though they are expressed in literary terms—including in his poem “Each and All”— those ideas have philosophical meaning, depth, and scope. Chapter Three then finds some of the origins of Heidegger and Emerson’s ideas in Wordsworth’s prose works about poetry—including in the ways the latter are influenced by the eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume. The second half of that chapter analyses and discusses Wordsworth’s poem “The Thorn,” and demonstrates how the concept of care offers new ways of reading and interpreting that poem. The fourth and last chapter discusses the legacies of the ideas explored in chapters one to three by studying what Cavell writes about them. Drawing on analyses by contemporary philosophers Sandra Laugier, Stephen Mulhall, and Simon Critchley, I demonstrate that the notion that poetry manifests care reveals philosophical and ethical connections between Cavell’s ideas, those discussed in the previous chapters, and care ethics. 2 Abstract This thesis investigates the idea that care is a notion that is relevant to the study of literary theory, its history, and the study of literature, especially poetry and poetics. Care is as a notion under which are subsumed a range of behaviours and activities that preserve or promote the integrity or wellbeing of things or beings, and that involve taking care, being careful, caring, attentive and respectful. The field of care ethics discusses various aspects of such a notion of care, but not its relation to poetry, which is what this investigation explores. Chapter One thus turns to the works of Martin Heidegger, who wrote about both care and poetry, in order to establish the philosophical relevance of the notion of care for literary theory. The chapter demonstrates how poetry manifests and pertains to what Heidegger calls authentic care through poetry’s acknowledgment and opening up of semantic and ontological wealth, which preserves and respects a thing or person’s Being. Chapter Two then discusses the works of another thinker who wrote several essays on poetry—Ralph Waldo Emerson—and demonstrates how his ideas constitute some of the origins of the notion that poetry manifests care. This is achieved by revealing the phenomenological and ontological scope of Emerson’s views and by showing how his poem “Each and All” manifests authentic care. Going even further back in the history of ideas about poetry, Chapter Three studies William Wordsworth’s poetics. This chapter highlights Wordsworth’s proto-phenomenological claims about poetry and the ordinary, and it argues that these both testify to an engagement with the legacies of David Hume’s philosophy, and lay some of the foundations of the idea that poetry manifests care—as further demonstrated by an analysis of his poem “The Thorn.” The fourth and final chapter, centred on Stanley Cavell, traces the legacies, in his works, of the ideas about poetry and care put forward by the authors discussed in chapters one to three. This chapter demonstrates how Cavell’s views, notably about how Romanticism constitutes a response to scepticism, provide further arguments supporting the idea that poetry manifests care. This idea, the chapter concludes, implies ways of being and of relating to things and to people that share core characteristics with those both Cavell and care ethicists describe as ethically and socio- politically valuable. The purpose of this study is threefold. First, by uncovering some of the philosophical filiations and affiliations of the idea that poetry manifests care, this investigation endeavours to contribute to the study of the history of ideas—of theories about literature and poetry in particular. Second, this investigation hopes to make contributions to the field of literary theory and criticism, particularly poetics, by showing how asking a literary text whether it contains ideas pertaining to the notion that poetry manifests care uncovers new philosophical aspects within. Third, this exploration seeks to contribute to Heidegger, Emerson, Wordsworth, and Cavell scholarship, not only by demonstrating the philosophical connections between these authors’ ideas, but also by providing new interpretations and ways of reading these authors’ works, and by uncovering new relationships between poetry, phenomenology, ontology, and ethics therein. 3 Acknowledgement I am extremely grateful for the help and advice I have received over the years from many people and institutions, including my academic supervisors, colleagues, friends, and family members, but there is only one person I wish to thank above all others, and that is my wife Faiza, whose unflinching support, in the many forms it has taken, has been invaluable. 4 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter One: Heidegger ............................................................................................... 17 1. The Fable of the Goddess Cura and Ontological Care ................................................. 18 2. Manifestations of Ontological Care, Solicitude, and Authentic Care .......................... 24 3. Care for Being and Relationships to Language: Idle Talk and Speaking Extensively v. Listening and Keeping Silent .............................................................................................. 31 4. Poetic Discourse and Authenticity ............................................................................... 38 5. Objectifying Discourse and Poetry’s “Logic of the Heart” ........................................... 44 6. Dwelling, Poetry, and Authentic Care .......................................................................... 53 7. Language, Authentic Care, and Poetry ........................................................................ 60 8. Closing Remarks ........................................................................................................... 65 Chapter Two: Emerson ................................................................................................. 71 1. Poetry and Things ........................................................................................................ 73 2. Poetry’s Care for People .............................................................................................. 79 3. Poetry’s Transformative Power ................................................................................... 87 4. Poetry and Ontologies of Dwelling and Departing ...................................................... 94 5. Poetry, the Ordinary, and Words .............................................................................. 100 6. “Each and All” ............................................................................................................ 110 7. Closing Remarks ......................................................................................................... 117 Chapter Three: Wordsworth ........................................................................................ 121 1. Phenomenology and Epistemology in Wordsworth’s Works .................................... 123 2. Hume’s Scepticism and Sympathy ............................................................................