Abstract
Before we measure the strength of the Metaphysical tradition in Ken’s verse, we should show the disintegration of this tradition in the wake of two kinds of Enlightenment aesthetic, the aesthetics of infinity and neoclassicism. Both were suited to the purposes and mood of pietism, the one allowing a crude expressionism with scope for unconfined sublimity, the other offering a strictly regulated Parnassian alternative for moments when enthusiasm flagged and it became necessary, with the steadying help of poetic diction, to point to what was obvious, agreed and social in religious experience.
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© 1972 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Hoyles, J. (1972). The Aesthetics of Infinity. In: The Edges of Augustanism. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d’Histoire des Idees, vol 53. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2819-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2819-6_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-2821-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-2819-6
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