Figures of memory : from the muses to eighteenth-century British aesthetics / Zsolt Komáromy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Komáromy, Zsolt, author.

Series:

Transits (Bucknell University)

Transits : Literature, Thought & Culture, 1650-1850

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Criticism--Great Britain--History--18th century.

Criticism.

English literature--18th century--History and criticism--Theory, etc.

English literature.

Memory in literature.

Imagination in literature.

Memory (Philosophy).

Imagination (Philosophy).

Aesthetics, British--18th century.

Aesthetics, British.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (237 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Lanham, Maryland ; Plymouth, England : Bucknell University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book effects a rapprochement between memory studies and eighteenth-century aesthetics with the aim of modifying received views on the role and fate of memory in the history of criticism. It argues that the philosophical problems characterizing conceptualizations of memory unsettle its opposition to the imagination and explain its relation to literary discourse. Moving from the Muses through Plato and Descartes to works by Pope, Addison, Gerard, and Kames, the book traces these problems through various ''figures'' representing notions of memory, and claims that eighteenth-century critical

Contents:

Figures Of Memory ; CONTENTS; Acknowledgments; Introduction: The Reproductive-Productive Dichotomy and Beyond; PART ONE : On Notions of Memory; 1 Memory/Imagination: The Representational Model; 2 Conceptual Cruxes: Plato and the Aporia of Memory; i. "Ridiculous Birdcages or Waxen Slabs":Figures of Representational Memory; ii. Plato and the Muses: Self-Validating Memory; iii. The Function of Cruxes: Memory Validating the Imagination; 3 Mnemonic Practice: The Constructive Model; i. Mnemonic Discourse; ii. Constructive Memory; PART TWO:Figures of Memory in Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics

4 Mixing Tracesi. Descartes and Memory's Fluid Motions; ii. Pope's Melting Wax; 5 Mnemonic Imagination; i. Violent Spirits: Addison's Cartesian Concerns; ii. Analogous Exertions: Gerard and Associationism as a Figure of Memory; Memory and Imagination in the Theory of Association; Memory as the Model of Imagination in Gerard's Essay on Genius; iii. Using the Legacy of the Muses: Kames and Vivacity as a Figure of Memory; The "Vivacity" of Memory and Imagination; The "Complete Idea of Memory" in Kames's Elements of Criticism; iv. Conclusion; Works Cited; Index; About the Author

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

979-82-16-35595-3

1-61148-045-0

OCLC:

888746483