Wow! eBook
The Poetic Enlightenment: Poetry and Human Science, 1650–1820
Author(s): Rowan Boyson (Author)
- Publisher: Routledge
- Publication Date: 1 May 2013
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 224 pages
- ISBN-10: 1848934041
- ISBN-13: 9781848934047
Book Description
The essays in this edited collection look at the role of poetry in the development of Enlightenment ideas. As scholarly disciplines began to emerge – anthropology, linguistics, psychology – the ancient art of poetry was invoked to create new ways of defining and expanding this philosophy of human science.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘The essays in this ambitious volume collectively argue that poetry and Enlightenment are entangled at every point in eighteenth-century British culture. A distinguished sequence of chapters mounts a convincing cumulative challenge to the idea that the Enlightenment was an age of prose. The Poetic Enlightenment promises to reorientate critical approaches to eighteenth-century thought and poetry in relation to the comprehensive aim to develop a ‘Science’ of human life in all its aspects.’ Susan Manning, University of Edinburgh ‘The Poetic Enlightenment gathers together essays from an outstanding group of scholars on the importance of poetry for Enlightenment thinkers. These essays brilliantly demonstrate in a variety of ways why we need to think much harder about the resources of poetry as a form of knowing, both in our own contemporaneity and historically with reference to the many discourses of knowledge that comprise Enlightenment. The collection as a whole will make a significant contribution to our re-enlightenment.’ Peter de Bolla, University of Cambridge
About the Author
Tom Jones, Rowan Boyson
