Blake and Lucretius

The Atomistic Materialism of the Selfhood

Joshua Schouten de Jel (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

X, 266 Seiten

2021 | 1st ed. 2021
Springer International Publishing (Verlag)
978-3-030-88887-9 (ISBN)

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This book demonstrates the way in which William Blake aligned his idiosyncratic concept of the Selfhood - the lens through which the despiritualised subject beholds the material world - with the atomistic materialism of the Epicurean school as it was transmitted through the first-century BC Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius' De Rerum Natura. By addressing this philosophical debt, this study sets out a threefold re-evaluation of Blake's work: to clarify the classical stream of Blake's philosophical heritage through Lucretius; to return Blake to his historical moment, a thirty-year period from 1790 to 1820 which has been described as the second Lucretian moment in England; and to employ a new exegetical model for understanding the phenomenological parameters and epistemological frameworks of Blake's mythopoeia. Accordingly, it is revealed that Blake was not only aware of classical atomistic cosmogony and sense-based epistemology but that he systematically mapped postlapsarian existence onto an Epicurean framework.

lt;b>Joshua Schouten de Jel is a recent doctoral graduate from the University of Plymouth, UK. He is the author of articles on William Blake, Mary Shelley, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: The Epicurean and Lucretian Slur: Francis Bacon.- Chapter 3: The Epicurean and Lucretian Slur: Isaac Newton.- Chapter 4: Simulacra and the Selfhood.- Chapter 5: Urizenic Phantasiae.- Chapter 6: The Cosmic Chains of the Machina Mundi.

Erscheinungsdatum	26.11.2021
Reihe/Serie	The New Antiquity
Zusatzinfo	X, 266 p.
Verlagsort	Cham
Sprache	englisch
Maße	148 x 210 mm
Gewicht	488 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
Schlagworte	Antiquity • Classical Studies • De rerum natura • Enlightenment • Epicureanism • Epistemology • Philosophy • Postlapsarian • roman poet • Romanticism
ISBN-10	3-030-88887-8 / 3030888878
ISBN-13	978-3-030-88887-9 / 9783030888879
Zustand	Neuware