1st Edition
Literature and Philosophy in Nineteenth-Century British Culture
This is a three-volume collection of primary sources which examines philosophy and literature in nineteenth-century Britain. Accompanied by extensive editorial commentary, this collection will be of great interest to students and scholars of British Literature and Philosophy.
Literature and Philosophy in Nineteenth Century British Culture
Volume 1: Literature and Philosophy of the Romantic Period
Edited by Monika Class and Cian Duffy
General Introduction: "No longer such an Ancient Quarrel: Literature and Philosophy in Nineteenth-Century British Culture", Giles Whiteley
Volume 1. Introduction: "Romantic-era Literature and Philosophy: From Ancient Rivalry to Reciprocity" — Monika Class
Part 1. Knowledge and Belief
Part 1. Introduction: "God, Nature, and the Secularisation of Morality and Knowledge" — Monika Class
1. William Paley, ‘The Unity of the Deity’, of Natural Theology: Or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature (London: Faulder, 1802), pp. 482–87.
2. Anna Laetitia Barbauld (née Aikin), ‘An Address to the Deity’ of Poems (London: Joseph Johnson, 1773), pp. 125–30.
3. Catharine Macaulay, Part III, Letter XIII, ‘The Question of Free Will and Necessity’, of Letters on Education: With Observations on Religious and Metaphysical Subjects (Dublin: Chamberlain and Rice, 1790), pp. 282–86.
4. Friedrich August Nitsch, A General and Introductory View of Professor Kant Concerning Man, the World and the Deity (London: J. Downes, 1796), pp. 219–21.
5. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘Aphorisms on That Which Is Indeed Spiritual Religion: Aphorism VIII’, of Aids to Reflection: In the Formation of a Manly Character on the Several Grounds Prudence, Morality, and Religion; illustrated by select passages from elder divines, especially from Archbishop Leighton (Burlington: Goodrich, 1829), pp. 135–43.
6. Henry Crabb Robinson, ‘Letter from an under-Graduate, at the University of Jena, on the Philosophy of Kant’, The Monthly Register and Encyclopedian Magazine 2, 7 (1802), pp. 6–12.
7. Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation’, of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (ed.), Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (London: John and Henry L. Hunt, 1824), pp. 3–12.
8. Francis Jeffrey, ‘Stewart’s Account of the Life and Writings of Dr Thomas Reid, F. R. S. Edin’, The Edinburgh Review 3, 6 (1804), pp. 269–87. 272–77.
Part 2. Self
Part 2. Introduction: "The Reciprocity of Literature and Philosophy at the Intersection of Self and Other" — Monika Class
9. Thomas Beddoes, ‘Of the Brunonian Doctrine’, of The Elements of Medicine of John Brown, M. D. Translated from the Latin Comments and Illustrations […] with a Biographical Preface by Thomas Beddoes (London: J. Johnson, 1795), pp. cxxvi–cxxxv.
10. Elizabeth Hamilton, Excerpts from Ch. VII ‘Operation of the Selfish Principle in the Spirit of Party’, of A Series of Popular Essays, Illustrative of Principles Essentially Connected with the Improvement of the Understanding, the Imagination, and the Heart 2nd ed. vol. 2. 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Manners and Miller, 1813), pp. 38-42, 79-82.
11. Charlotte Smith (neé Turner), ‘Sonnet XXXII: To Melancholy’, of Elegiac Sonnets. 5th edition (London: T. Cadell, 1789), p. 32.
12. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, excerpt from Chapter XIII of Biographia Literaria, or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions vol. 1. 2 vols. (London: William Fenner, 1817), pp. 290–96.
13. William Wordsworth, excerpt from Book II ‘School-time Continued’, of The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet’s Mind; an Autobiographical Poem (London: Edward Moxon, 1850), pp. 41–52.
14. John Keats, excerpt from ‘Letter to Bailey, 22 November 1817; Letter to Brothers, 22 December 1817’, of Lord Houghton (ed.), The Life and Letters of John Keats (London: Edward Moxon, 1867), pp. 51–5, 74–6.
15. William Hazlitt. An Essay on the Principles of Human Action: Being an Argument in Favour of the Natural Disinterestedness of the Human Mind (London: J. Johnson, 1805), pp. 1–8, 17-20.
16. Thomas Carlyle, excerpt from Book II, ‘The Everlasting Yea’, of Sartor Resartus, 2nd edition (Boston: J. Monroe and Company, 1837), pp. 189–203.
Part 3. Art and Criticism
Part 3. Introduction: "Philosophical Aesthetics and Beyond" — Cian Duffy
17. Archibald Alison, ‘Of the Effect Produced upon the Imagination by Objects of Beauty and Sublimity’, of Essays on the Nature and Principles of Tast, 4th edition (Edinburgh: George Ramsay, [1790] 1815), pp. 3–22.
18. John Aikin and Anna Laetitia Barbauld (née Aikin), ‘On the Pleasure Derived from Objects of Terror’, of Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose (London: J. Johnson, 1773), pp. 119–37.
19. Ann Radcliffe, ‘On the Supernatural in Poetry’, The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal 16, 61 (1826), pp. 145–52.
20. Richard Payne Knight, Book I of The Landscape, a Didactic Poem (London: W. Bulmer, 1794), lines 97–272, pp. 7-16.
21. Joanna Baillie, ‘Introductory Discourse to Plays on the Passions’, of A Series of Plays Vol. 1 (London: Longman, 1798), pp. 17–25.
22. Isaac D’Israeli, ‘On some Characteristics of a Youth of Genius’, of An Essay on the Manners and Genius of the Literary Character (London: T. Cadell, 1795), pp. 43–51.
23. Charles Lamb, excerpt ‘On the Genius and Character of Hogarth; with some Remarks’, The Reflector 2 (1811), pp. 61–77. 63–68.
24. Baroness Holstein Staël, excerpt from Ch. IX "Influence of the New German Philosophy on Literature and the Arts’, of Germany; Translated from the French Vol. 3. 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1813), pp. 135–145.
25. Thomas de Quincey, excerpt from ‘Lessing: Gallery of the German Prose Classics. By the English Opium Eater. Part II’, Blackwood’s Edinburg Magazine 21, 121 (Jan 1827), pp. 2–24. 11–18.
26. Percy Bysshe Shelley, excerpt from ‘A Defence of Poetry’ [composed 1821] of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (ed.), Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments Vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1840), pp. 25–62. 53–60.
Part 4. Society
Part 4. Introduction: "Literature, Philosophy, and Revolution" — Cian Duffy
27. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris, 5th edition (London: J. Dodsley, 1790), pp. 47–54.
28. Thomas Paine, Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution (London: J. S. Jordon, 1791), pp. 5–14.
29. Mary Wollstonecraft, excerpt from Ch. XIII ‘Some Instances of the Folly which the Ignorance of Women Generates’, of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (London: J. Johnson, 1792), pp. 248–56.
30. Hannah More, excerpt from Ch. II ‘On the Education of Women’, of Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education Vol. 1. 2 vols. (London: T. Cadell, 1799), pp. 70–9.
31. Maria and Richard Lovell Edgeworth, excerpt from ‘Tasks’, of Essays on Practical Education, 3rd ed., Vol. 1. 2 vols. (London: J. Johnson, [1798] 1811), pp. 74–83.
32. Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Printed in the Year 1780, and Now First Published (London: T. Payne, 1789), pp. i–vi.
33. William Godwin, ‘Objection to the System from the Principle of Population’ of Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness 2nd ed. vol. 2. 2 vols. (London: G.G. and J. Robinson, [1793] 1796), pp. 509–22.
34. Thomas R. Malthus, ‘Error of Mr. Godwin’, of An Essay on the Principle of Population; or, a View of Its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness (London: J. Johnson, 1798), pp. 250–63.
35. James Stephen, The Opportunity; or, Reasons for an Immediate Alliance with St. Domingo (London: J. Hatchard, 1804), pp. 139–48.
36. Thomas Carlyle, excerpt from ‘Art Vii Review of Anticipation; or, a Hundred Years Hence [on the Signs of the Times]’, Edinburgh Review 98, 48 (1829), pp. 439-59. 442–47.
Index
Volume 2: The Mid-Nineteenth Century
Edited by Peter Garratt and Giles Whiteley
General Introduction: "No longer such an Ancient Quarrel: Literature and Philosophy in Nineteenth-Century British Culture", Giles Whiteley
Volume II Introduction – Peter Garratt and Giles Whiteley
Part 1. Self
Part 1. Introduction
1. James Ferrier, ‘On the Plagiarisms of Coleridge’, Blackwood’s Magazine 47 (Mar 1840), pp. 287-90, 296, 299.
2. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, book I, (London: Chapman and Hall, 1857), pp. 28-35.
3. G. H. Lewes, ‘Feeling and Thinking’, The Physiology of Common Life, vol 2. (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1859), pp. 1-7, 65-9.
4. Frances Power Cobbe, ‘Dreams as Illustrations of Unconscious Cerebration’, Macmillan’s Magazine (April 1871), pp. 512-13, 518-23.
5. Alfred Tennyson, ‘The Two Voices’, Poems (London: Edward Moxon, 1842), pp. 124-32.
6. Alexander Bain, ‘Law of Contiguity’, The Senses and the Intellect (John Parker and Son, 1855), pp. 442-48.
7. Henry Maudsley, ‘Hamlet’, Body and Mind, 2nd edn. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1873), pp. 169-78.
8. Charles Darwin, ‘General Principles of Expression’, On the Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (London: John Murray, 1872), pp. 353-59, 365-67.
9. J. S. Mill, ‘A Crisis in My Mental History’, Autobiography (London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1873), pp. 138-41, 143-44, 146-49.
Part 2. Knowledge/Belief
Part 2. Introduction
10. William Hamilton, ‘Philosophy of the Unconditioned’, Discussions on Philosophy, Literature and Education, 2nd edn. (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1853), pp. 12-15
11. John Ruskin, ‘German Philosophy’, Modern Painters III (1856), in The Complete Works of John Ruskin, vol. 5, ed. E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn (London: George Allen, 1904), pp. 424-26.
12. Ludwig Feuerbach, extract from The Essence of Christianity, trans. Marian Evans (London: John Chapman, 1854), pp. 267-69, 271-72.
13. Herbert Spencer, ‘The Unknowable’, First Principles (London: Williams and Norgate, 1862), pp. 93-7
14. Harriet Martineau, ‘Preface’, The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (London: John Chapman, 1853), pp. vii-viii, x-xi, xiii-xv.
15. J. S. Mill, ‘The Relativity of Human Knowledge’, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts and Green, 1865), pp. 57-61.
16. Benjamin Jowett, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture’, Essays and Reviews (London: John W. Parker, 1860), pp. 377-80, 382-83.
17. Matthew Arnold, ‘The Bishop and the Philosopher’, Macmillan’s Magazine 39 (Jan 1863), pp. 252-56.
18. Alfred Tennyson, ‘Lucretius’, Macmillan’s Magazine 103 (May 1868), pp. 1-9.
Part 3. Aesthetics, Art & Literature
Part 3. Introduction
19. John Keble, extract from Lectures on Poetry, 1832-41, trans. E. K. Francis, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon, 1912), pp. 53-9, 65-7.
20. John Ruskin, ‘Of the Three Forms of Imagination’, Modern Painters II (1846), in E.T. Cook and A. Wedderburn (eds), The Complete Works of John Ruskin (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), vol 5, pp. 223–28.
21. John Orchard, ‘A Dialogue on Art’, Art and Poetry [aka The Germ] 4 (April 1850), pp. 160-65.
22. Robert Browning, ‘“Transcendentalism”: A Poem in Twelve Books’, Men and Women, vol. 2 (London: Chapman and Hall, 1855), pp. 223-26.
23. David Masson, ‘Theories of Poetry’, Essays Biographical and Critical: Chiefly on English Poets (London: Macmillan and Co., 1856), pp. 437-49, 443-46.
24. Alexander Bain, ‘Emotions of Intellect’, The Emotions and the Will (London: John Parker and Son, 1859), pp. 149-62.
25. E. S. Dallas, ‘The Hidden Soul’, The Gay Science, vol. I (London: Chapman and Hall, 1866), 199-202, 205-08.
26. George Eliot, ‘O May I Join the Choir Invisible’ (1867), in The Legend of Jubal and Other Poems (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1874), pp. 240-42.
27. Hippolyte Taine, extract from History of English Literature, trans. Henri van Laun (New York: Holt and Williams, 1871), pp. 17-21.
Index
Volume 3: Literature and Philosophy in the ‘Long-Late-Victorian’ Period
Edited by Andrea Selleri
General Introduction: "No longer such an Ancient Quarrel: Literature and Philosophy in Nineteenth-Century British Culture", Giles Whiteley
Volume 3 introduction – Andrea Selleri
Part 1. Knowledge and Belief
Part 1. Introduction
1. Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Science of Deduction’, of The Sign of Four (London and Philadelphia, 1890), pp. 13-17
2. Edwin Abbott Abbott, Preface to the 2nd edition of Flatland (London, 1884), pp. 17-22
3. George Eliot, ‘How We Come to Give Ourselves False Testimonials, and Believe in Them’, of Impressions of Theophrastus Such (London, 1879), pp. 228-33, 236
4. Henry Jones, excerpt from ‘A Criticism of Browning’s View of the Failure of Knowledge’, of Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher (London & New York, 1896), pp. 220-22, 224, 226-28
5. William James, excerpt from ‘The Psychology of Belief’, Mind 19.55 (Jul. 1889), pp. 325-31
6. Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘That Nature Is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection’, The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. Robert Bridges (London: Humphrey Milford, 1918 [written 1889]), pp. 68
7. Mary Augusta Ward, excerpt from Robert Elsmere (London, 1888), pp. 338-43
8. Constance Naden, ‘The Roman Philosopher to Christian Priests’ in Songs and Sonnets of Springtime (London, 1881), pp. 16-18
9. James Thomson, ‘Philosophy’ in The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems (London, 1880), pp. 134-37
10. Anon., excerpt from ‘Modern Pessimism’, Quarterly Review 196.392 (1902), pp. 625-29, 636-40, 644-45
Part 2. Introduction
11. Robert Louis Stevenson, excerpt from ‘Markheim’ in Henry Norman (ed.), The Broken Shaft: Tales of Mid-Ocean (New York, 1886), 52-7, 60-1, 65-6, 68-78
12. George Henry Lewes, ‘Consciousness and Unconsciousness’, Mind 2.6 (Apr. 1877), pp. 156-61, 163-66
13. May Sinclair, excerpt from ‘Guyon: A Philosophical Dialogue’, in Essays in Verse (London, 1891), pp. 16-23
14. Francis Herbert Bradley, excerpt from ‘The Meanings of Self’, of Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay (London, 1893), pp. 75-86
15. Mathilde Blind, section III and VI, ‘Chaunts of Life’ in The Ascent of Man (London, 1889), pp. 164-69, 182-87
16. Samuel Butler, ‘Thought and Language’, 1890 lecture, collected in R.A. Streatfeild (ed.) Essays on Life, Art and Science (London, 1908), pp. 176-78, 184-85, 187-92, 206-08, 225-28
17. Edwin Arnold, ‘Buddha Under the Bodhi Tree’, from book 6 of The Light of Asia (Chicago, 1879), pp. 155-73
18. Oscar Wilde (attr.), ‘The Magnet’s Story’, reported in Richard Le Gallienne’s The Romantic Nineties (Garden City, N.Y., 1925), pp. 254-56
19. Thomas Hardy, ‘Fore scene: The Overworld’, in The Dynasts (London, 1903)
20. Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany, ‘The Dreams of the Prophet’, in Time and the Gods (London, 1906), pp. 118-22
Part 3 Introduction
21. William Morris, excerpt from ‘The Prospects of Architecture in Civilisation’, 1881 lecture collected in Hopes and Fears for Art (London, 1882), pp. 190-92, 205-11
22. George Meredith, excerpt from ‘On the Idea of Comedy and the Uses of the Comic Spirit’, The New Quarterly Magazine 8 (Jan. 1877), pp. 1-2, 8-9, 30, 32-33
23. Vernon Lee, excerpt from ‘On Literary Construction’, in The Handling of Words; And Other Studies in Literary Psychology (London: John Lane, 1922 [1886]), pp. 1, 22-29
24. Algernon Charles Swinburne, excerpt from ‘Victor Hugo: L’Année Terrible’, in Essays and Studies (London: Chatto and Windus, 1875 [1872]), pp. 41-45
25. Edward Dowden, excerpt from ‘The Interpretation of Literature’, Transcripts and Studies (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1896 [1886]), pp. 238-39, 251-52, 254, 265-68
26. Ella D’Arcy (as ‘G.H. Page’), ‘Personality in Art’, Westminster Review 139.1 (Jan. 1893): 646-53
27. Andrew Cecil Bradley, excerpt from ‘Poetry for Poetry’s Sake’, 1901 lecture collected in Oxford Lectures on Poetry (London, 1909), pp. 7-17
28. James Sully, excerpt from ‘George Eliot’s Art’, Mind 6.23 (Jul. 1881), 380-85, 390-91
29. Edward Caird, extract from ‘Goethe and Philosophy’, Essays on Literature and Philosophy (Glasgow: J. Maclehose & sons, 1892 [1886]), pp. 54-55, 58-60, 62-63
30. Havelock Ellis, extract from ‘Casanova’, in Affirmations (London, 1898), pp. 112-18
Part 4. Introduction
31. Leslie Stephen, excerpt from ‘The Moral Element in Literature’, Cornhill Magazine 43 (Jan. 1881), pp. 34-9, 49-50
32. Frederick Denison Maurice, excerpt from ‘Social Morality’, in Social Morality: Twenty-One Lectures (London, 1872), pp. 7-11
33. Julia Wedgwood, excerpt from ‘Ethics and Literature’, Contemporary Review 71 (Jan. 1897), pp. 77-80
34. William Hurrell Mallock, excerpt from The New Republic (London, 1877), pp. 213-22
35. Walter Pater, excerpt from ‘New Cirenaicism’, of Marius the Epicurean: His Sensations and Ideas (London, 1885), pp. 143-48, 150-53
36. Grant Allen, excerpt from ‘The New Hedonism’, Fortnightly Review 55.327 (Mar. 1894), 379-83, 389-92
37. Amy Levy, ‘Xantippe’ in Xantippe, and Other Verse (London, 1881), pp. 1-13
38. Lewis Carroll, excerpt from Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (London, 1893), pp. 181-87
39. John Addington Symonds, ‘Literature – Idealistic’, of A Problem in Modern Ethics: Being an Inquiry into the Phenomenon of Sexual Inversion (London, 1896), pp. 115-20, 122-25
40. Herbert George Wells, excerpt from ‘Concerning Freedoms’, of A Modern Utopia (London, 1905), pp. 31-4, 37-42
Index
Biography
Giles Whiteley is Professor of English Literature at Stockholm University. He has published widely on nineteenth-century literature, with a particular focus on the movement of aestheticism and decadence, including work on key figures such as Wilde, Huysmans and Pater, as well as writing frequently on Dickens.
Dr Monika Class is a senior lecturer in English Studies at the Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Sweden
Cian Duffy is professor and chair of English literature at Lund University, Sweden
Andrea Selleri, University of Warwick, is the editor of a recent book on Literary Studies and the Philosophy of Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). He has published essays on mid- and late-Victorian philosophy and literature including work on Swinburne and Wilde.
Peter Garratt, Durham University, has worked extensively on mid-Victorian philosophy and literature at the intersection of the cognitive and empirical sciences. His book on Victorian Empiricism (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2010) showed the ways in which realist authors such as George Eliot worked in a climate informed by contemporary scientific philosophy. He has also published extensively on other Victorian authors and empirical philosophy, including Ruskin, Dickens, Gaskell and Vernon Lee.
