Creating States: Studies in the Performative Language of John Milton and William BlakeAlthough 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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 77
... poems , from the province of speech - act theory : ... a performative utterance will , for example , be in a peculiar way hollow or void if said by an actor on the stage , or if introduced in a poem , or spoken in soliloquy ... Language ...
... poem must be regarded as interdependent . The visionary poet , in particular , stakes the effectiveness of his or ... poetic text . Credibility , moreover , is likely to depend on the author's ability to echo or iterate conventions of ...
... poetic texts . When Wordsworth proposes the language really used by men as an alternative to poetic diction , he does not necessarily share the assumptions of twentieth ... poem is far removed 16 Creating States The Text as Speech Act.
... poem should not mean / But be ' ( 41 ) . But if MacLeish's statement denies poetry an empirically referential and active role , it simultaneously affirms the poem's existence in a mode of reality distinct from that of the empirical ...
... poems which translates an actual utterance ( the poem was delivered as a toast during a banquet on 15 February 1893 ) into a text that celebrates the performative force of all poetry , thus demonstrating the continuation of life ...
Contents
10 | |
16 | |
23 | |
31 | |
42 | |
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 |
Index | 239 |
Other editions - View all
Creating States: Studies in the Performative Language of John Milton and ... Angela Esterhammer No preview available - 1994 |