Elations: The Poetics of Enthusiasm in Eighteenth-Century Britain

by Shaun Irlam

Elations rewrites the history of early-18th-century English literature around the politics and poetics of "Enthusiasm." It examines the aesthetic theory of the period, traces the evolution and differentiation of a poetic enthusiasm from religious enthusiasm, and reassesses the poetry of two poets very popular in their James Thomson and Edward Young.

300 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1999