Epic, idealism, and romanticism

Thesis

My opening argument is that Romantic aesthetics is grounded in a metaphysics for which epic is a fitting form. This metaphysics presents an ontological picture that endorses a substance monism that either claims mind to be this substance or includes mind as part of some neutral substance. I then argue for what I call ‘metaphysical Hegelianism about epic’, which is the view that epic’s ‘inner form’, to borrow Georg Lukács’s term, is characterised by concern with the limitation of the freedom of individuals by objective reality. Epic is characteristically concerned with two types of limitation particularly: limitation of the will, and limitation of freedom by the presence of other minds. The first of these leads to artistic consideration of the kinds of experience associated with apprehension of questions surrounding free will and determinism. The second leads to artistic consideration of the place of the individual agent in relation to the community. To show the epic’s preoccupation with mind-emphasising ontologies and normative models of agency, examples are given from the four main epics I discuss: The Prelude (1798-9, 1805, and 1850 texts), Sordello (first published 1840), Aurora Leigh (first published 1856), and Leaves of Grass (first published 1855). I then ask why epic consideration of these problems can be valuable. With reference to Romantic epistemology, I argue that art can provide knowledge that goes beyond what is possible for propositionally-based knowledge. Consequently, artworks must be experienced for the kinds of unparaphrasable knowledge they contain to be accessed. I suggest that a central function of the scholarship and criticism of art is to assist the experiencer in this experiencing. Finally, I discuss two different ways in which the word ‘epic’ is sometimes used: to describe the epic form; and to describe the experience of individual works in the epic form that satisfy certain conditions.

Authors: Wynn Owen, A

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: romanticism; idealism; epic
• Subjects: Poetry; Idealism in literature; Romanticism