Solitude and the Sublime
Romanticism and the Aesthetics of Individuation
Frances Ferguson(Author)
Routledge (Publisher)
Published on 22. October 1992
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-0-415-90548-0 (ISBN)
Description
At the close of the 18th century, the aesthetics of the sublime were shaped by two conflicting views: the empiricism of Edmund Burke and the formalist idealism of Immanuel Kant. Today, theoretical work struggles once again with this philosophical issue. In modern debates over the nature of literary language and of human agency, the sublime has been a bone of contention for critics of every stripe, from Adorno and Eagleton to Derrida and de Man, from deconstructionists to New Historicists. In this bold work, Frances Ferguson seeks to rescue Kantian idealism from prevailing empiricist critiques and to explain its particular urgency for our understanding of Romanticism. Burke and Kant are discussed in terms of the philosophical issues they raise, and the theoretical issues addressed by some of the most important recent writing on them. Ferguson then engages with various phenomena in Romantic writing - the Gothic novel, the population debates in 18th- and early 19th-century England, and travel literature. The final section of the work weighs the materialist claims of New Historicism and deconstruction.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
430 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-415-90548-0 (9780415905480)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Content
1. An Introduction to the Sublime 2. The Sublime of Edmund Burke, or The Bathos of Experience 3. Burke to Kant: A Judgement outside Comparison 4. The Gothicism of the Gothic Novel 5. Godwin, Wordsworth, and the Spirit of Solitude 6. In Search of the Natural Sublime: The Face on the Forest Floor 7. Historicism, Deconstruction, and Wordsworth.