Philosophical Connections (Elements In Eighteenth-Century Connections)

Neoclassical and Romantic verse cultures are often assumed to sit in an oppositional relationship to one another, with the latter amounting to a hostile reaction against the former. But there are in fact a good deal of continuities between the two movements, ones that strike at the heart of the evolution of verse forms in the period. This Element proposes that the mid-eighteenth-century poet Mark Akenside, and his hugely influential Pleasures of Imagination, represent a case study in the deep connections between Neoclassicism and Romanticism. Akenside's poem offers a vital illustration of how verse was a rival to philosophy in the period, offering a new perspective on philosophic problems of appearance, or how the world 'seems to be'. What results from this is a poetic form of knowing: one that foregrounds feeling over fact, that connects Neoclassicism and Romanticism, and that Akenside called the imagination's 'pleasures'.

• | Author: Chris Townsend
• | Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• | Publication Date: May 19, 2022
• | Number of Pages: 78 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback/Literary Criticism
• | ISBN-10: 100922297X
• | ISBN-13: 9781009222976