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The Rhetoric of Romantic Prophecy » (1)

Book cover image of The Rhetoric of Romantic Prophecy by Ian Balfour

Authors: Ian Balfour
ISBN-13: 9780804742313, ISBN-10: 0804742316
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Date Published: August 2002
Edition: 1

Author Biography: Ian Balfour

Ian Balfour is Director of the Graduate Program in English at York University.

Book Synopsis

The romantic era in England and Germany saw a sudden renewal of prophetic modes of writing. Biblical prophecy and classical oracle once again became viable models for poetry and even for journalistic prose. After surveying 18th-century biblical hermeneutics, as well as numerous instances of prophetic eruption in Romantic poetry, the book culminates in close readings of works by Blake, Hölderlin, and Coleridge.

1	Introduction: The Call of Prophecy and the Future (After Benjamin)	1
2	The Scope and Texture of Romantic Prophecy: Wordsworth and Novalis Among Others	19
Pt. I	Prophetic Figures in Eighteenth-Century Interpretation
3	Robert Lowth and the Temporality of Prophetic Rhetoric	55
4	The Speaking Hieroglyph: Hurd, Warburton, and the Matter of Style	82
5	Herder and Eichhorn: Word, Deed, and Fiction in Prophetic Discourse	106
Pt. II	Readings in Prophetic Writing
6	The Mediated Vision: Blake, Milton, and the Lines of Prophetic Tradition	127
7	Holderlin's Moment of Truth: "Germanien" and the Oracle to the Nation (With an Excursus on Revelation, Representation, and Religion in the Age of German Idealism)	173
8	Allegories of the Symbol: Rhetoric, Politics, and Prophecy in Coleridge's The Statesmen's Manual	250
	Notes	287
	Index	339