English Fiction & Prose Literature - General & Miscellaneous - Literary Criticism, Romanticism - Literary Movements, English Fiction & Prose Literature - 19th Century - Literary Criticism, Philosophy & Literature

Knowledge and Indifference in English Romantic Prose

Name: Knowledge and Indifference in English Romantic Prose
Author: Tim Milnes
ISBN: 9780521035958

by Tim Milnes, Milnes Tim

Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Overview

This ambitious study sheds new light on the way in which the English Romantics dealt with the basic problems of knowledge, particularly as they inherited them from the philosopher David Hume. Kant complained that the failure of philosophy in the eighteenth century to answer empirical scepticism had produced a culture of 'indifferentism'. Tim Milnes explores the way in which Romantic writers extended this epistemic indifference through their resistance to argumentation, and finds that it exists in a perpetual state of tension with a compulsion to know. This tension is most clearly evident in the prose writing of the period, in works such as Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Hazlitt's Essay on the Principles of Human Action, and Coleridge's Biographies Literaria. Milnes argues that it is in their oscillation between knowledge and indifference that the Romantics prefigure the ambivalent negotiations of modern post-analytic philosophy.

Synopsis

This study sheds light on the way in which the English Romantics dealt with the problems of knowledge.

About the Author, Tim Milnes

Tim Milnes is lecturer in English at the University of Edinburgh. He has published articles in Journal of the History of Ideas, Comparative Literature, Studies in Romanticism and European Romantic Review.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

From the Publisher

'Milnes illuminates the relationship between Romantic philosophy and literature; in doing so, he affords new insights into contemporary approaches to cross-disciplinary criticism.' BARS Bulletin & Review

'Milnes produces a very informed and erudite consideration … a very deep and at times taxing though rewarding study … the reader is rewarded by graceful turns of phrase that convey rich insight and understanding of the very constructs of knowledge.' European Romantic Review