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 72
... reader to accept their utterance as emanating from a transcendent authority either external or internal to the self. Their language, in presenting itself as inspired or visionary, posits two related moments of effectual discourse: the ...
... reader to accept their utterance as emanating from a transcendent authority either external or internal to the self ... readers . Yet literary criticism of the past three decades has attacked Logos as a limited concept , challenging the ...
... prophetic ) authority to the speaking voice and elicit the reader's or hearer's assent . This type of utterance , and the corresponding interpretive approach , is here called the phenomenological performative , since 12 Creating States.
... reader that there are at least two contexts in which the words of the novel can function – as utter- ances of characters , or utterances of an author in the real world . When we read the first words of Moby - Dick , ' Call me Ishmael ...
... writing , but it is cold at the time of reading , whether that is 1898 ( when the fragment was first published ) or the present . From the reader's perspective , the conditional sentence which makes up most of 20 Creating States.
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 |