"Where is Earth?": Reading Global Vision and the View from Nowhere in Edward Young’s Night Thoughts and William Blake’s The Four Zoas.
This article examines the theme of global vision and the "view from nowhere" in Edward Young’s mid-eighteenth-century poem *Night Thoughts* and its influence on William Blake’s later work, particularly *The Four Zoas*. Young’s poem frequently employs the image of the terrestrial globe as a metaphor...
| Publicado en: | Eighteenth Century: Theory & Interpretation Vol. 65; no. 4; pp. 273 - 292 |
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| Formato: | Literary Criticism |
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University of Pennsylvania Press
Winter2024
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=193294645&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 193294645 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01935380 B3MC jtl: Eighteenth Century: Theory & Interpretation issn: 01935380 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Winter2024 vid: 65 iid: 4 pid: 4636 pub: University of Pennsylvania Press artinfo: ui: 193294645 10.1353/ecy.2024.a987267 ppf: 273 ppct: 19 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 2.5MB tig: atl: "Where is Earth?": Reading Global Vision and the View from Nowhere in Edward Young’s Night Thoughts and William Blake’s The Four Zoas. aug: au: Ritchie, Caroline Anjali affil: Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. su: Worldview Blake, William, 1757-1827 Poetry (Literary form) Symbolism in literature Objectivity Enlightenment Poets Contemplation sug: subj: Worldview Blake, William, 1757-1827 Poetry (Literary form) Symbolism in literature Objectivity Enlightenment Poets Contemplation ab: This article examines the theme of global vision and the "view from nowhere" in Edward Young’s mid-eighteenth-century poem *Night Thoughts* and its influence on William Blake’s later work, particularly *The Four Zoas*. Young’s poem frequently employs the image of the terrestrial globe as a metaphor for a disorienting yet profound cognitive and spiritual perspective that oscillates between personal grief and universal contemplation, reflecting on mortality, morality, and divine understanding. The “view from nowhere,” a concept later theorized by philosopher Thomas Nagel, functions in Young’s work as a hermeneutic device that both unsettles and refocuses readerly attention, embodying the tension between subjective experience and the aspiration toward objective, cosmic comprehension. Blake’s engagement with Young’s global poetics—especially through his commissioned designs for *Night Thoughts* and his own poetic projects—both inherits and critically reconfigures this motif, emphasizing the limitations and pathos of abstract rationality while exploring imaginative and affective dimensions of global vision. The article concludes by situating these eighteenth-century poetic globes alongside the contemporaneous trope of the bubble, arguing that Young’s and Blake’s globe imagery complicates simplistic readings of Enlightenment worldviews by foregrounding the provisional, speculative, and affective nature of attempts to grasp totality in poetry and thought. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Literary Criticism src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Eighteenth Century: Theory & Interpretation is the property of University of Pennsylvania Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Eighteenth Century: Theory & Interpretation holder: University of Pennsylvania Press dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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