William Blake vs 17th-18th century linguistics
Essick, Robert N. William
Blake and the Language of Adam. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
Contents
List of Plates ix
Note on Texts x
Introduction 1
1. Adam
Naming the Beasts and its Companions 6
2. In Pursuit of the Motivated Sign 28
3. Natural Signs and the Fall of Language 104
4. Language and Modes of Production 160
5. The Return to Logos 195
Afterword: Romantic Languages and Modern
Methodologies 237
Bibliography 240
Index 261
Here two usually distinct lines
of humanistic inquiry intersect: Blake studies and the history of linguistics
and the scientific revolution. Conceptions of language and signification,
evolving with the rationalism and empiricism of early modern philosophy and
science, are challenged by Blake’s radically different world view.
Of particular interest here is
Chapter 2, in which Blake’s view of language is contrasted with the
philosophical languages of the 17th and 18th centuries—Wilkins,
Dalgarno, etc.—a comparison one does not often see. See also pp. 133-135 for
more on John Wilkins.
Presumably here one can learn
more about the historically evolving dialectic between scientism and
romanticism in the modern world.
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