Creating States: Studies in the Performative Language of John Milton and William Blake - Couverture rigide

Esterhammer, Angela

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0802005624 ISBN 13 : 9780802005625

Editeur : University of Toronto Press, 1994

Synopsis

Although the concept of the performative has influenced literary theory in numerous ways, this book represents one of the first full-length studies of performative language in literary texts. Creating States examines the visionary poetry of John Milton and William Blake, using a critical approach based on principles of speech-act theory as articulated by J.L. Austin, John Searle, and Emile Benveniste. Angela Esterhammer proposes a new way of understanding the relationship between these two poets, while at the same time evaluating the role of speech-act philosophy in the reading of visionary poetry and Romantic literature.

Esterhammer distinguishes between the 'sociopolitical performative, ' the speech act which is defined by a societal context and derives power from institutional authority, and the `phenomenological performative, ' language which is invested with the power to posit or create because of the individual will and consciousness of the speaker.

Analysing texts such as The Reason of Church-Government, Paradise Lost, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and Jerusalem, Esterhammer traces the parallel evolution of Milton and Blake from writers of political and anti-prelatical tracts to poets who, having failed in their attempts to alter historical circumstances through a direct address to their contemporaries, reaffirm their faith in individual visionary consciousness and the creative word - while continuing to use the forms of a socially or politically performative language.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Angela Esterhammer is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Zurich, and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Western Ontario.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Toronto Press
• Date d'édition: 1994
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0802005624
• ISBN 13: 9780802005625
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 277
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible