Poetry of attention in the eighteenth century / Margaret Koehler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Koehler, Margaret, 1972-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English poetry--18th century--History and criticism.

English poetry.

Psychology and literature--History--18th century.

Psychology and literature.

Interest (Psychology).

Cognition in literature.

Discourse analysis, Literary.

History.

Physical Description:

xii, 263 pages ; 23 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Summary:

""Poetry of Attention in the Eighteenth Century" identifies a pervasive cultivation of attention in eighteenth-century poetry. The book argues that a plea from a 1692 ode by William Congreve-"Let me be all, but my attention, dead"-embodies a wider aspiration in the period's poetry to explore overt themes of attention and demonstrate techniques of readerly attention. It historicizes eighteenth-century accounts of attention and pioneers a link between the period's poetry and recent discussions of attention in cognitive psychology. It contributes to the largely neglected history of a psychological trait that has assumed a recent cultural urgency, and it repositions eighteenth-century poems as a collective model for assiduous reading and supple, wide-ranging attention"--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 History and Theory of Attention in the Eighteenth Century 15

2 The Filter of Attention in Mock-Heroic Poetry 61

3 Odes of Absorption 85

4 Multiple Sensory Modalities of Attention 101

5 Landscape Poetry I: The Discovery of Receptivity 127

6 Landscape Poetry II: The Practice of Receptivity 161

7 Cowper's Task of Attention 181.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781137031129

1137031123

OCLC:

792880355