This thesis undertakes to explore the way in which the emergence of new science epistemological, linguistic, and ethical ideals influenced and transformed the ways in which seventeenth- and eighteenth-century writers conceived of lyric experience, bringing about a metamorphosis of the lyric from a minor to a major genre. The <I>Introductory Preamble</I> establishes the polemical and intellectual bases for this study, drawing attention to the way in which eighteenth-century criticism devalues the contribution of the lyric in eighteenth-century culture and society. It shows how the lyric was the most popular poetic form throughout the century, and it provides evidence of a changing view of its expressive abilities from the early to the later decades. The <I>Preamble</I> concludes with the thesis that the lyric's change in generic valuation occurs because it shared many of the epistemological assumptions which conditioned or modified most thought and feeling throughout the century, that lyric experience evolved as part of a cultural circumambience in which, through both ideological and rhetorical precepts, experimental science was exerting an hegemonic force on every aspect of day-to-day experience. The lyric genre was that form which most readily expressed the new experience and appreciation of nature brought about by the experimental science. <I>Chapter One</I> assesses why the modern critical tradition has conceived the image of the eighteenth-century lyric as it has done for about two hundred years. This review yields theoretical and historical fruits for the arguments of later chapters. <I>Chapter Two</I>, focusing on Bacon's <I>The Advancement of Learning</I>, the work of Wilkins, Sprat, Locke, and others, examines those particular components of the new science which directly influenced the metamorphosis of the lyric genre--the rejection of authority, the development of epistemological principles, and adherence to a linguistic, rhetorical, and ethical code.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:641556 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Bergstrom, Carson Robert |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/20719 |
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