Philosophical Connections

Akenside, Neoclassicism, Romanticism

Chris Townsend

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781009222976
• eBook ISBN: 9781009222969
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Neoclassical and Romantic verse cultures are often assumed to sit in an oppositional relationship to one another, with the latter amounting to a hostile reaction against the former. But there are in fact a good deal of continuities between the two movements, ones that strike at the heart of the evolution of verse forms in the period. This Element proposes that the mid-eighteenth-century poet Mark Akenside, and his hugely influential Pleasures of Imagination, represent a case study in the deep connections between Neoclassicism and Romanticism. Akenside's poem offers a vital illustration of how verse was a rival to philosophy in the period, offering a new perspective on philosophic problems of appearance, or how the world 'seems to be'. What results from this is a poetic form of knowing: one that foregrounds feeling over fact, that connects Neoclassicism and Romanticism, and that Akenside called the imagination's 'pleasures'.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Philosophical Connections: Akenside, Neoclassicism, Romanticism
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgements