Book contents
- Kant and Literary Studies
- Cambridge Studies in Literature and Philosophy
- Kant and Literary Studies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Kant on Literature
- Chapter 1 “Differing Only in Degree”
- Chapter 2 On Power in an Extra-secular Sense
- Chapter 3 Kant and the Problem of Tragedy
- Part II Kant, Literary Theory, and the Critical Formation of the “Human” Disciplines
- Part III Kant and Literature
- Index
- References
Chapter 1 - “Differing Only in Degree”
Judging and Making in Kant and Wordsworth
from Part I - Kant on Literature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2025
Edited by
Book contents
- Kant and Literary Studies
- Cambridge Studies in Literature and Philosophy
- Kant and Literary Studies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Kant on Literature
- Chapter 1 “Differing Only in Degree”
- Chapter 2 On Power in an Extra-secular Sense
- Chapter 3 Kant and the Problem of Tragedy
- Part II Kant, Literary Theory, and the Critical Formation of the “Human” Disciplines
- Part III Kant and Literature
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter investigates why Kant repeatedly refers to “poetry” alone among the arts as “a mode of thinking” (“Denkungsart”) rather than “pleasing” artform. It closely examines Kant’s accounts of “what the poets do” that distinguishes their art from all other art forms, before comparing these to directly related formulations in Wordsworth’s “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” and other writings on poetics. Finally this chapter closely examines individual poems and critical passages in Wordsworth’s poetic corpus that bring the activity that he, like Kant, calls “thinking” into relief, so as to explore the following questions: Is such thinking specific to poetry, and if so, what are its characteristics? What distinguishes its vocabulary and syntactic shape? And does the poetic production of thinking, or poetic thinking, described in Kant’s Critique of Judgment and theorized and practiced by Wordsworth imply that thinking may itself depend, both actively and historically, upon poetry-making?
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Kant and Literary Studies , pp. 13 - 42Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
References
Adorno, T. W. “Minima Moralia: Reflections from the Damaged Life.” Trans. Dennis Redmond. www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1951/mm/ch01.htm.Google Scholar
Adorno, T. W. Minima Moralia: Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1973.Google Scholar
Altieri, Charles. “Wordsworth’s ‘Preface’ as Literary Theory.” Criticism 18.2 (1976), 122–146.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Jay M. The Fate of Art: Aesthetic Alienation from Kant to Derrida and Adorno. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Boyson, Rowan. Wordsworth and the Enlightenment Idea of Pleasure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Brodsky, Claudia. Words’ Worth: What the Poet Does. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ginsborg, Hannah. “On the Key to Kant’s Critique of Taste.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 72.4 (1991), 290–313.Google Scholar
Goetschel, Willi. Constituting Critique: Kant’s Writing as Critical Praxis. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Guyer, Paul. Kant and the Claims of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment. Trans. W. S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2007.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. W. S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Kaufman, Robert. “Red Kant, or the Persistence of the Third ‘Critique’ in Adorno and Jameson.” Critical Inquiry 26.4 (2000), 682–724.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longuenesse, Béatrice. Kant and the Capacity to Judge: Sensibility and Discursivity in the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Longuenesse, Béatrice. “Kant’s Leading Thread in the Analytic of the Beautiful.” In Aesthetics and Cognition in Kant’s Critical Philosophy, ed. Kukla, Rebecca. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen ökonomie. Berlin: Dietz Verlag Berlin, 1962.Google Scholar
Weiskel, Thomas. The Romantic Sublime: Studies in the Structure and Psychology of Transcendence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wordsworth, William. The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, 3 vols. Ed. Owen, W. J. B. and Smyser, J. W.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974, Vol. 1.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, 3 vols. Ed. Owen, W. J. B. and Smyser, J. W.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974, Vol. 3.Google Scholar
Wu, Duncan. Wordsworth’s Reading, 1800–1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Zuckert, Rachel. Kant on Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the Critique of Judgment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zuckert, Rachel. “A New Look at Kant’s Theory of Pleasure.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60.3 (2002): 239–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown
and may be updated in the future.