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 84
... Acts , and Visions xiii 1 Performative Language and Visionary 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 ...
... Speech Acts and World - Creation : The Dual Function of the Performative ' in the Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée 20 ( 1993 ) ; part of chapter 3 as ' Med- dling with Authority ...
... act depends on its being spoken by a qualified individual in appropriate circumstances , so as to conform to the ... speech acts to operate , but when his constitutive rules fail to provide a rigorous definition of the performative ...
... speech - act theory demonstrates that the circumstances surrounding actual ... acts . Rather , the arrangement of How to Do Things with Words as a ... speech situation . Because the significance of circumstances and context is built into ...
... speech situation in Austin's philosophy of speech acts , it is perhaps not surprising that the central problem of ... speech , and of utterances in plays or poems , from the province of speech - act theory : ... a performative utterance ...
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 |