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
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... Poetry 3 Parole and Its Contexts 3 The Speaker as Performer 7 Utterance and Context : Two Directions for Analysis 10 Speech Acts in the Text 13 The Text as Speech Act 16 Sociopolitical versus Phenomenological Performatives 23 The ...
... Poetry and the Poetry of Creation 88 Creation and ' Firstness ' in the Invocations 88 The Performativity of Divine Speech 99 Divine Creation and Verbal Performance 104 Naming and Subjectivity 110 5 The Circumference of Vision : Songs of ...
... Milton and William Blake Angela Esterhammer. Creating States 201 Living Words 208 The Community of Phrases 216 Bibliography 221 Index 239 References and Abbreviations All quotations from Milton's poetry are cited Contents ix.
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Contents
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 |
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Creating States: Studies in the Performative Language of John Milton and ... Angela Esterhammer No preview available - 1994 |