Exorbitant Enlightenment : Blake, Hamann, and Anglo-German constellations / Alexander Regier.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Regier, Alexander, 1976- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Blake, William, 1757-1827--Criticism and interpretation.

Blake, William.

Hamann, Johann Georg, 1730-1788--Criticism and interpretation.

Hamann, Johann Georg.

Blake, William, 1757-1827.

Hamann, Johann Georg, 1730-1788.

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

English literature.

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

German literature.

Criticism and interpretation.

Germany--Intellectual life--18th century.

Germany.

Intellectual life.

Germany--Relations--Great Britain.

Relations.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Intellectual life--18th century.

Great Britain--Relations--Germany.

International relations.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xi, 253 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2018.

Summary:

Exorbitant Enlightenment compels us to see eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century literature and culture in new ways. This book reveals a constellation of groundbreaking pre-1790s Anglo-German relations, many of which are so radical so exorbitant that they ask us to fundamentally rethink the ways we grasp literary and intellectual history, especially when it comes to Enlightenment and Romanticism. 0Regier presents two of the great, untold stories of the eighteenth century. The first story uncovers a forgotten Anglo-German network of thought and writing in Britain between 1700 and 1790. From this Anglo-German context emerges the second story: about a group of idiosyncratic figures and institutions, including the Moravians in 1750s London, Henry Fuseli, and Johann Caspar Lavater, as well as the two most exorbitant figures, William Blake and Johann Georg Hamann. The books eight chapters show0how these authors and institutions shake up common understandings of British literary and European intellectual history and offer a very different, much more counter-intuitive view of the period. Through their distinctive conceptions of language, Blake and Hamann articulate in different yet deeply related ways a radical critique of instrumental thought and institutional religion. They also argue for the irreducible relation between language and the sexual body. In each case, they push against some of the most central cultural and philosophical assumptions, then and now. The book argues that, when taken seriously, these exorbitant figures allow us to uncover and revise some of our own critical orthodoxies.

Contents:

1 Unexpected Connections: Anglo-German Contexts in Pre-1790s Britain p. 31

2 Blake and Hamann: Exorbitants p. 70

3 Crossing Channels: Fuseli, Hamann, and Lavater p. 93

4 Blake and Hamann: Poetry as Mother-Tongue and the Fight against Instrumental Reason p. 125

5 The Polyglot Moravians in Eighteenth-Century London p. 151

6 A Critique of Habit: Blake and Hamann on Religion, Matrimony, and Pedagogy p. 167

7 Hybrid Hymns: Anglo-German Voices in Blake's Songs p. 183

8 Every Letter Has a Body: Blake and Hamann on the Sexuality of Language p. 204.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0198827121

9780198827122

OCLC:

1040659266