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 51
... action or alters the condition of the speaker , the addressee , or the environment , so that the appropriate criterion for evaluating the relation of the utterance to the world is its ' felicity ' or success in achieving an effect . The ...
... action is illustrated by the pervasiveness of Archibald MacLeish's dictum ' A poem should not mean / But be ' ( 41 ) . But if MacLeish's statement denies poetry an empirically referential and active role , it simultaneously affirms the ...
... actions are always grounded in preexistent textual models ( whether these be poetic , journalistic , filmic , or whatever ) ... action . In the terms I have outlined above , this means that the speech - act dimension of Mallarmé's poetry ...
... action are not separated in Austin's theory , but rather placed on a contin- uum . In its original form , the theory of performative language makes it pos- sible to consider the speech acts of Milton or Blake , like those of ordinary ...
... actions in and on , human society - a process which , I shall argue , begins as early as the second chapter of Genesis it nevertheless opens with a model of performative utterance which pre - exists and tran- scends convention ...
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 |
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Creating States: Studies in the Performative Language of John Milton and ... Angela Esterhammer No preview available - 1994 |