Romantic Consciousness Blake to Mary Shelley [Paperback]

Revolutionary thinking at the end of the Eighteenth century prompted major English writers to probe the riddle of human consciousness and the ways in which it might differ from 'Being' in a divine or universal sense. In the first of two studies, John Beer traces this question in writings by Blake, Coleridge and Wordsworth, and the impact of their ideas on successors such as Keats, De Quincey, Byron and the Shelleys. Relevance to later figures such as the Cambridge Apostles and Tennyson is also discussed.Foreword Consciousness and the Mystery of Being Blakes Fear of Non-Entity Coleridge, Wordsworth and 'Unknown Modes of Being' Keats and the Highgate Nightingales De Quincey and the Dark Sublime Tennyson, the Cambridge Apostles and the Nature of 'Reality' Shelley and Byron: Polarities of Being Mary Shelley's Mediation Appendix: Wordsworth's Later Sense of Being Abbreviations Index

'John Beer draws on half a century of reading and thinking in this remarkable commentary on the fortunes of 'Being' in the works of the great Romantics. John Beer has always been distinguished as a scholar by his ability both to value the historical idiosyncrasy of his subjects while relating their writings to the perennial human preoccupations, and his book is full of sympathetic illumination and intellectual delight.' - Seamus Perry, Fellow of Balliol College and Tutor in English, University of Oxford, UK

'This beautifully written book shows how close readings of the works of the canonical Romantics Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, De Quincey, Mary Shelley, P.B. Shelley and Byron can still enlighten readers interested in topical conceptions of consciousness. Framing his study in a critical discussion of the theories of Antonio Damasio, John Beer probes the distinction between Being and consciousness, an elusive yet vital theme explicated here with an admirable lightness of touch. Beer brings the Romantics into conversation, comparing generously-quoted passages lS‹