Wordsworth and the Enlightenment Idea of Pleasure

Reviews / Votes

'... persuasively argues that theories of pleasure in the eighteenth century have been mischaracterized as conservative, normative, and stultifying ... A timely study of an important concept that offers a much needed account of the strange and heretofore somewhat baffling insistence in Wordsworth's work on the importance of pleasure.' European Romantic Review 'This study brilliantly examines the modern misreading of Enlightenment pleasure, reframing it as as communal, collective and joyous (rather than private, solipsistic and disinterested). Boyson excels at engaging the reader with an argument that is at once historical, political and philosophical, but that skillfully holds on to the literary and aesthetic ... There is no doubt that Wordsworth and the Enlightenment Idea of Pleasure offers a significant argument that I hope will both influence Wordsworth studies and open up the positive experiences his poetry offers for further critical attention. The study might even be considered as part of the 'eudaimonic turn' that currently seeks to rescue joy, ecstasy, wonder and happiness from those critics who dismiss it as ideology or neurosis in their weary roles as the defenders of literary criticism's negativity bias.' Emma Mason, BARS Bulletin and Review '... challenging, capacious [and] conceptually rich ... at once a critique and an astute extension of Wordsworth's philosophical and aesthetic commitments.' Michael Pickard, Studies in Romanticism