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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

187706

"The history and science of feeling"

Wordsworth's affective poetics, then and now

Mark J. Bruhn

pp. 671-693

Abstract

This chapter revisits the "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads and related materials in order to (re)assess Wordsworth's affective poetics in terms both of its own literary-historical moment and of our cognitive-neuroscientific one. Drawing upon research in psychology, narratology, and empirical aesthetics, the discussion elaborates the history and science behind a set of related hypotheses, recently proposed by Keith Oatley et al., concerning "the communication of emotion in art": (1) "emotions often are unclear"; (2) "emotions inspire creative expression"; (3) "artistic expression should often take on the form of emotion [or] have the dynamic and thematic properties of an emotion"; and (4) "readers or spectators of art should readily perceive the emotion communicated."

Publication details

Published in:

Blake Thomas (2017) The Palgrave handbook of affect studies and textual criticism. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 671-693

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-63303-9_25

Full citation:

Bruhn Mark J. (2017) „"The history and science of feeling": Wordsworth's affective poetics, then and now“, In: T. Blake (ed.), The Palgrave handbook of affect studies and textual criticism, Dordrecht, Springer, 671–693.