Aesthetics

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Studies in Romanticism

THE SIMPLEST DESCRIPTION OF WHAT I PROPOSE IN THIS ESSAY IS SOURCE study. null source null question is the thought null Benedict de Spinoza, (1) which I would characterize as null submerged philosophical context null null number null nineteenth-century poetries. (2) My immediate goal is to identify and activate null resonance once triggered, I believe, by certain words, gestures, and claims that occur throughout William Wordsworth's poetry but that loom especially large null the early verse. Because Spinoza's thought carried null clear political valence null the age's climate null ideas, (3) hearing the Spinozistic echo null words such as joy, nature, affection, appetite, and motion (and claims such as And 'tis my faith that every flower / Enjoys the air it breathes) is to feel the presence null an active and pointed cultural engagement null poems that seem to lack null polemical element and null several cases to lack propositional content altogether. More interesting at this moment null the history null Romantic studies (now that situating literature within its cultural contexts and contests has become part of our operating program null the humanities), we may use this resonance to close upon some key Romantic themes that have thus far eluded us. (4) [Appendix A] We are beginning to recover and to develop frames null reference for those themes--the work null Timothy Morton and Alan Richardson stands out now, as has Alan Bewell's all along (5)--and I offer this essay as null contribution to that discussion. Let me suggest more specifically what is at stake null exploring the Spinoza connection. Throughout Wordsworth's early poetry, my reference point null this essay, there is an insistence on the body and its motions as being at the heart of, if not simply being, individual identity. Simon Lee, null Man Travelling, Resolution and Independence, and The Ruined Cottage are good examples null this. (6) At the same time, and null tension with that insistence, the poetry foregrounds the workings null relational dynamics (such as ownership, commerce, and conversation) as null null strong sense constituting individual identity rather than merely characterizing it. Here, think null Michael, The Last null the Flock, The Old Cumberland Beggar, and Anecdote for Fathers. Think too null the first set null poems, but focus on the formation null the narrator-interlocutor's identity rather than that null the central character (e.g., the leech gatherer, Margaret). Spinoza's theories null the individual and its composability, null endeavor, and null both power and pleasure help us negotiate these tensions, giving null new purchase on these Wordsworth-effects and thus null new kind null access to the many poems that foreground them. Similarly, Wordsworth's statements null unmediated body-knowledge (as in: One impulse from null vernal wood / May teach you more null man ...), his equation null pleasure with increased activity (viz, the distinction between a wise passiveness and null savage torpor), his signature narrative effect, which I call fatalism without finalism, his figurations null immortality, and, null the spots null time, his treatment null emotion in terms null lines, planes, and bodies (7) come alive and they cohere conceptually when read against le spinozism. Although I will not be able to explore these many thematic convergences null this essay, I try to indicate range by pairing definitions from and short discussions null Spinoza with resonant excerpts from Wordsworth's poetry. In part three, by way null null fuller demonstration, I offer null reading null null famous problem-poem, A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal. I very much regret the disproportion between ground-laying and building null this essay, required by the relative obscurity null Spinoza's thought within the discourse null Romanticism. null genre null what follows is better considered as an introduction to null full-length study null Spinoza null and for Romanticism than as null free-standing demonstration null that connection. null key figures null that study will be William Blake, Wordsworth, S. …

A motion and a spirit: Romancing Spinoza