Creating States: Studies in the Performative Language of John Milton and William BlakeUniversity of Toronto Press, 1994 M01 1 - 245 páginas 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. |
Contenido
Two Directions for Analysis | 10 |
The Text as Speech Act | 16 |
Sociopolitical versus Phenomenological Performatives | 23 |
Benveniste and Barthes | 31 |
2 | 42 |
The P Myth | 48 |
The J Myth | 54 |
3 | 65 |
5 | 119 |
Relations in the State of Innocence | 132 |
Relations in the State of Experience | 143 |
Naming in The Book of Urizen | 152 |
The Argument of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell | 158 |
A Song of Liberty | 167 |
Statements and States | 174 |
A Revision | 184 |
General and Special Inspiration | 70 |
Miltons Promise | 77 |
The Elision of the Performative | 85 |
The Performativity of Divine Speech | 99 |
Naming and Subjectivity | 110 |
A Division | 191 |
Creating States | 201 |
The Community of Phrases | 216 |
239 | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Creating States: Studies in the Performative Language of John Milton and ... Angela Esterhammer Vista previa limitada - 1994 |
Creating States: Studies in the Performative Language of John Milton and ... Angela Esterhammer Sin vista previa disponible - 1994 |