"Genial" Perception: Wordsworth, Coleridge and the Myth of Genius in the Long Eighteenth Century (Clemson University Press: Eighteenth-Century Moments)

Edinger, William C.

ISBN 10: 1638040222 / ISBN 13: 9781638040224

Edité par Clemson University Press w/ LUP, 2022

N° de réf. du vendeur mon0003782739

Synopsis :

Genial Perception offers a critical examination of Wordsworth's and Coleridge's naturalist construction of creative and critical perception, and a historical study of the perceptual dimension of poetic taste. "Genial" is the adjectival form of "genius," and eighteenth-century critical
naturalism understands "genial" perception as a gift of nature, as an inborn power operating autonomously through the senses and imagination and thus independently of cultural influence.

By exploring the philology of keywords and binaries inherited by the two poet-critics and used to describe and interpret their perceptual experience, both creative (imaginative) and critical, Genial Perception traces how that experience reveals an unacknowledged indebtedness to discourse and
language, having been silently and perhaps unconsciously shaped by patterns and trends in the literary culture in which Wordsworth and Coleridge came of age.

This study shows that critical perception, often thought to be too elusive and subjective to make a proper subject for historical investigation, can be approached through study of the terms- the language- of the practical criticism that attempts to communicate it; that both critical and creative
perception are far more dependent on language than is commonly recognized; and that philology, by recovering the original usage, functions, and contexts of critical keywords, provides for an accurate historical understanding of the claims made by critics in the long eighteenth century for "genial"
perception, and can illuminate the dynamics of "genial" perception itself.

À propos de l'auteur: William C. Edinger was a professor of English at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. He was a specialist in poetry and 18th century literature and was a founder of the English Department Honors Program. He passed away in 2021.

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : "Genial" Perception: Wordsworth, Coleridge ...
Éditeur : Clemson University Press w/ LUP
Date d'édition : 2022
Reliure : hardcover
Etat : Fine