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 54
... narrative . Pratt's book plays a fundamental role in opening up the possibilities that speech - act theory offers for the reading of narrative . In her view , the literary speech situation encompasses the previ- ously unacknowledged ...
... narration , of explicit speech - act signs tends to ' de- chronologize ' the historical ' thread ' and to restore , if only as a reminiscence or a nostalgia , a complex , parametric , non - linear time whose deep space recalls the ...
... narrative forms of visionary poetry , the focus shifts from what happened to the telling of what happened , who is telling it and why it is being told . The four passages of first - person address by the narrator of Paradise Lost , at ...
... narratives with ' here ' and ' now ' and ' Mark well my words ' ; reminding us always of the subjectivity and contempora- neity of verbal utterance , both of them recall to us the ultimate origins of the discourse of history in all our ...
... narrative in Genesis 2-3 , which is known to biblical scholars as the Jahwist or ' J ' text , and the Priestly or ' P ' myth of cre- ation in Genesis 1. While performative speech is a central component of both myths , they illustrate ...
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 |