Imagination under pressure, 1789-1832 : aesthetics, politics, and utility / John Whale.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whale, John C., author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in Romanticism ; 39.

Cambridge studies in Romanticism ; 39

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Politics and literature--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Politics and literature.

Politics and literature--Great Britain--History--18th century.

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

Political science--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Political science.

Political science--Great Britain--History--18th century.

Utilitarianism--Great Britain--History.

Utilitarianism.

Romanticism--Great Britain.

Romanticism.

Aesthetics, British.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 240 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This ambitious study, first published in 2000, offers a radical reassessment of one of the most important concepts of the Romantic period - the imagination. In contrast to traditional accounts, John Whale locates the Romantic imagination within the period's lively and often antagonistic polemics on aesthetics and politics. In particular he focuses on the different versions of imagination produced within British writing in response to the cultural crises of the French Revolution and the ideology of utilitarianism. Through detailed analysis of key texts by Burke, Paine, Wollstonecraft, Bentham, Hazlitt, Cobbett and Coleridge, Imagination under Pressure seeks to restore the role of imagination as a more positive force within cultural critique. The book concludes with a chapter on the afterlife of the Coleridgean imagination in the work of John Stuart Mill and I. A. Richards. As a whole it represents a timely and inventive contribution to the ongoing redefinition of Romantic literary and political culture.

Contents:

Burke and the civic imagination

Paine's attack on artifice

Wollstonecraft, imagination, and futurity

Hazlitt and the limits of the sympathetic imagination

Cobbett's imaginary landscape

Coleridge and the afterlife of imagination.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-236) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-11959-6

0-511-01071-0

1-280-15468-3

0-511-11840-6

0-511-15110-1

0-511-31046-3

0-511-48468-2

0-511-04970-6

OCLC:

475917791