Browsing by Author "Pickford, Henry"

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Open Access
A Transcendent View of Things: The Persistence of Metaphysics in Modern German Lyric Poetry, 1771-1908
(2022) Jolly, John
My dissertation explores the lyric poetry of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Eduard Mörike, and Rainer Maria Rilke, and it contends that these modern poets retain, albeit uneasily, a view of things as symbols of the transcendent divine. It thus disputes the secularization theory of post- Enlightenment aesthetics. This study specifically challenges the view of symbolism as mere metaphor—an image constructed of arbitrary signs (Nietzsche)—by showing how the epiphanies of modern lyric poetry remain grounded in the metaphysics of analogia, even where (as in Mörike) the writer seems to have left such entanglements behind. The modern poet’s desire to unveil a significant reality beyond subjective impression reveals that symbolic vision necessarily unfolds within the difference between the visible world and the transcendent divine. If signification entails likeness, yet lyric poetry always signifies in and through difference, then a constitutive analogy—that is, the simultaneity of likeness and even greater difference—emerges from within the dynamism of the lyric image itself. Part 1 begins by describing the symbolic image in Goethe’s lyric poetry to recover his view of things as expressing the “holy open mystery” of the cosmos. I show how his symbolism overcomes Enlightenment naturalism by drawing on the antecedent order of analogia. Thus, it reveals the partial yet indisputable relatedness of things to the transcendent. Turning to Mörike, part 2 charts his transition to an equivocal understanding of the symbol that would sever the image from its numinous source of significance by confining the image to the scope of the poet’s own gaze. Yet Mörike’s poetry also evinces a counter-veiling tendency to de-subjectivize the image, thus yielding a vision of things as they are prior to epistemic concerns, sentiment, and subjective preference. Part 3 contends that Rilke’s thing-poetry evinces a similar tendency to neutralize modernity’s biases against metaphysics. For, his poetry recovers an apophatic understanding of symbolism that draws on Dionysian theology. His poems thus focus our attention on the thing’s unfathomable capacity for initiating a vision of the divine, of which the thing itself is a partial and fleeting manifestation.
Open Access
Love, Power, and the Sovereign in Female Courtly Biographies of the Habsburg Empire. Venus and her Scepter: Tu Felix Austria
(2021-04) Kleinhans-Junghahn, Edana
Before the Austrian Empress Elisabeth (1837-1898) cast her spell over the world in the nineteenth century, a company of early modern female sovereigns of the Habsburg Dynasty fascinated their subjects with tales of love, scandal, glory, and power. In their own courtly biographies, the Empress Maria Theresia (1717-1780), and her ancestors Kunigunde of Austria (1465-1520), Margaretha of Savoy (1480-1530), and Johanna of Castile (1479-1555) were commemorated in works which asserted a bold commentary on the inherent essentiality of female power and the ascendancy of the Habsburgs in Europe. Venus and Her Scepter examines portrayals of Habsburg noblewomen between 1500-1800 as heroines of love, marriage, war, and diplomacy and offers one of the first comprehensive investigations of the female courtly biography as a literary and cultural phenomenon. Focusing on the unique ability of this divergent tradition to fuse fiction and historical narratives together, and to envision a world wherein the heroic female sovereign is an active participant in mending broken hearts, restoring reputations, avoiding bloodshed, resolving treaties, and defeating imperial enemies, this study details how the female courtly biography came to the aid of the Habsburgs during key moments of political crisis when the Dynasty stood to lose it all and helped to make a case for a mythology of power through women. Delving into the rich late medieval and early modern holdings of Austrian and German archives and libraries, and reflecting on the role of original manuscripts, lost documents, newspapers, and forgotten scholarship, Venus and Her Scepter sheds light on these sources and their connection with female patronage and authorship. In the process, this study reveals the female courtly biography’s surprisingly positive assessment of women as vital representatives of imperial government and explores how their reigns generated a legacy of Habsburg culture framed by the female perspective.