Hope against hope: Abraham Cowley and the metaphysics of poetry
In a poem to his friend Richard Crashaw, Abraham Cowley offered a critique of hope in ostentatiously metaphysical terms. He thus initiated an exchange, "On Hope," whose philosophical tenor offers new insights on the dialectic between poetry and metaphysics in seventeenth-century England. F...
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Johns Hopkins University Press
2023
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| _version_ | 1811141283712860160 |
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| author | Tregear, T |
| author_facet | Tregear, T |
| author_sort | Tregear, T |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | In a poem to his friend Richard Crashaw, Abraham Cowley offered a critique of hope in ostentatiously metaphysical terms. He thus initiated an exchange, "On Hope," whose philosophical tenor offers new insights on the dialectic between poetry and metaphysics in seventeenth-century England. Following Cowley's lead, this essay explores the principle of hope in metaphysical poetry. It reads his poem against the metaphysical tradition, from Aristotle to Theodor Adorno, to clarify its engagement with the Aristotelian notion of potentiality. And it shows how, even in writing against hope, Cowley's poetry can think, and hope, in ways that metaphysics cannot. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-25T04:35:25Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:a47813de-e389-4808-982b-2496c933bd48 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-25T04:35:25Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| publisher | Johns Hopkins University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:a47813de-e389-4808-982b-2496c933bd482024-09-18T14:59:05ZHope against hope: Abraham Cowley and the metaphysics of poetryJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:a47813de-e389-4808-982b-2496c933bd48EnglishSymplectic ElementsJohns Hopkins University Press2023Tregear, TIn a poem to his friend Richard Crashaw, Abraham Cowley offered a critique of hope in ostentatiously metaphysical terms. He thus initiated an exchange, "On Hope," whose philosophical tenor offers new insights on the dialectic between poetry and metaphysics in seventeenth-century England. Following Cowley's lead, this essay explores the principle of hope in metaphysical poetry. It reads his poem against the metaphysical tradition, from Aristotle to Theodor Adorno, to clarify its engagement with the Aristotelian notion of potentiality. And it shows how, even in writing against hope, Cowley's poetry can think, and hope, in ways that metaphysics cannot. |
| spellingShingle | Tregear, T Hope against hope: Abraham Cowley and the metaphysics of poetry |
| title | Hope against hope: Abraham Cowley and the metaphysics of poetry |
| title_full | Hope against hope: Abraham Cowley and the metaphysics of poetry |
| title_fullStr | Hope against hope: Abraham Cowley and the metaphysics of poetry |
| title_full_unstemmed | Hope against hope: Abraham Cowley and the metaphysics of poetry |
| title_short | Hope against hope: Abraham Cowley and the metaphysics of poetry |
| title_sort | hope against hope abraham cowley and the metaphysics of poetry |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT tregeart hopeagainsthopeabrahamcowleyandthemetaphysicsofpoetry |