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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... seem to depend on the poet's more or less conscious imitation of a model of language central to Western religious tradition, a tradition in which the term Logos names in a unique way the performative dimension of its central text. In ...
... seem to depend on the poet's more or less conscious imitation of a model of lan- guage central to Western religious tradition , a tradition in which the term Logos names in a unique way the performative dimension of its central text ...
... seem , the two approaches , which I term ' sociopolitical ' and ' phenomenological , ' are at times compatible . When they are not , it is precisely the distinction between them that can help to uncover the functioning of language in ...
... seem that my approach is simply , in Saussurian terms , a study of " parole " rather than " langue . " I am arguing , however , that an adequate study of speech acts is a study of langue ( Speech Acts 17 ) . Several scholars , however ...
... an illocutionary act is defined in part by the speaker's intention to perform that illocutionary act . on seriousness seems to contradict his preliminary claim that performative Performative Language and Visionary Poetry 7.
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 |