Date of Award
8-1-2024
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
English
First Advisor
Chandler, Anne
Abstract
Tracing poetic interpretations of sublimity’s relation to wonder, this project considers how several British poets flourishing between the 1660s and the 1840s leverage poetic form and content to critique received knowledge about learning, friendship, and the divine. They recognize that the relationship among these three elements is in flux, and thus their consideration of and attempts to encounter sublimity, and thereby access wonder and the un-reasonable, reveal possibilities that social teachings and practices could not and did not recognize as viable options. The simple fact of acknowledging the unknown as well as what is considered impossible makes them, and thus their readers, more sensitive to new ways of thinking about existing problems and thereby creates space for alternative ways of thinking, connecting with other human beings, and relating to the divine.
Access
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