Eighteenth-century Stoic poetics : Shaftesbury, Akenside, and the discipline of the imagination

Eighteenth-Century Stoic Poetics: Shaftesbury, Akenside, and the Discipline of the Imaginatio n offers a fresh perspective on the eighteenth-century poetics of Lord Shaftesbury and Mark Akenside. This book traces the two authors' debt to Roman Stoic spiritual exercises and early modern conceptions of the care of the self, which informs their view of the poetic imagination as a bundle of techniques designed to manage impressions, cultivate right images in the mind and rectify judgement. Alexandra Bacalu traces the roots of this articulation in early modern writings on the imagination, as well as in Restoration and Augustan debates on wit, exploring the fruitful tension between ideas of imaginative enthusiasm and imaginative regulation that it provokes. "Eighteenth-Century Stoic Poetics: Shaftesbury, Akenside, and the Discipline of the Imagination offers a fresh perspective on the eighteenth-century poetics of Lord Shaftesbury and Mark Akenside. This book traces the two authors' debt to Roman Stoic spiritual exercises and early modern conceptions of the care of the self, which informs their view of the poetic imagination as a bundle of techniques designed to manage impressions, cultivate right images in the mind and rectify judgement. Alexandra Bacalu traces the roots of this articulation in early modern writings on the imagination, as well as in Restoration and Augustan debates on wit, exploring the fruitful tension between ideas of imaginative enthusiasm and imaginative regulation that it provokes"-- Provided by publisher Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1 The Stoic Imagination 1 Sources and Genres 2 Imagination and Opinion 3 Early Modern Exercises for the Imagination Chapter 2 The Poetic Imagination 1 Sources and Genres 2 Dynamics of Wit and Judgement 3 Wit and Poetic Enthusiasm Chapter 3 Shaftesbury and the Discipline of the Fancies 1 ‘True Judgment and Ingenuity’ 2 Judgement and Stoic Exercises 3 Soliloquy and Imagination 4 Stoic Discipline and Reasonable Enthusiasm Chapter 4 Akenside and the Conduct of the Powers of Imagination 1 Stoic Ethics in The Pleasures of Imagination 2 Invention and Stoic Exercises 3 Pleasure and Enthusiasm 4 Familiarity, Habit, and Association Conclusion Bibliography Index