A Contradiction in Nature: The Attitude Toward Nature and Its Implications in James Thomson's "The Seasons" (original) (raw)
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Visual Interpretations, Print, and Illustrations of Thomson's The Seasons, 1730 - 1797
Eighteenth-Century Life, 2010
The painterly properties of James Thomson's long poem The Seasons (1730) and the poem's descriptiveness were routinely remarked upon by its earliest readers. Dr. Johnson noted: "His descriptions of extended scenes and general effects bring before us the whole magnificence of Nature, whether pleasing or dreadful.. .. The poet leads us through the appearances of things as they are successively varied by the vicissitudes of the year, and imparts to us so much of his own enthusiasm, that our thoughts expand with his imagery, and kindle with his sentiments." 1 Robert Heron praised the "countless profusion of particular images," while Robert Shiels had denominated description as the "peculiar talent of Thomson." 2 Joseph Warton, among others, hailed the authenticity of Thomson's descriptions but, like Johnson, embedded them in a moral framework, remarking that "pathetic reflection, properly introduced into a descriptive poem, will have a still greater force and beauty, and more deeply interest a reader, than a moral one." 3 Scenes and episodes from Thomson's poem were adapted, visually interpreted, and translated into different media that ranged from Chelsea softpaste candlesticks in the 1750s, Meissen and Derby figurines of allegorical "seasons" (produced throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), porcelain vases and creamware, to sculpture, decorative fireplace and floor
Image Making in James Thomson’s The Seasons
SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 2013
William B. Hutchings's work on James Thomson's The Seasons (1730-44) marks a significant departure from much of Thomson criticism that examines natural description. 1 He usefully discusses how "Thomson places emphasis upon verbs of motion" and "identif[ies] description with process, beauty with the action of perceiving it," and the "virtual" reality with which his images are endowed. 2 Focusing on the poet's landscapes, Hutchings offers insights into the evocative qualities of Thomson's language and images that are more widely applicable to passages from the poem that would not strictly be characterized as natural description. I wish to extend Hutchings's argument on the complex techniques of the poet's image-making processes by examining some types of images that contribute to generating Thomson's vision of poetic representation. Special attention will be given to the "capacity [of Thomson's images] to provoke the reader's imaginative experience through the power of their language and syntactic organization." 3 Thomson creates images that are tonally and modally determined and that enable him to produce an effectively varied long poem in which he skillfully modulates passages of discourse with passages of description. 4 In doing so, Thomson, as Patricia Meyer Spacks has noted, "varies the principle of realizing the invisible": the "nature of the poetic enterprise makes imagining the most important" capacity in the poet's synesthetic realm of constructed perception. 5 The complex interconnectedness of the various elements of Thomson's poetic images is realized and apprehended with an imaginative exploration of these images' very
2014
James Thomson’s descriptive long poem 'The Seasons', originally published in 1730, had a profound impact on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and print culture in Britain and in Europe more generally. This dissertation aims to produce a textual, paratextual, and print-cultural study of Thomson’s poem, from 1730 to 1820. It adopts an interdisciplinary methodological framework, drawing on methodologies of genre theory, print culture studies, book history, and translation studies, to generate a novel understanding of the text by examining the ways in which the poem was mediated both textually and materially throughout the period. Engaging with the latest developments in print culture and book-historical research, it examines the paratextual apparatuses and material packaging of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century editions of The Seasons to make sense of their interpretative and cultural ramifications. It identifies the economic impulses and editorialising strat...
The Concept of Nature in Early Modern English Literature
The Concept of Nature in Early Modern English Literature, 2019
In his polemical prose treatise The Rehearsall Transpros'd: The Second Part, Andrew Marvell upbraids Samuel Parker, then Archdeacon of Canterbury, for his criticism of Marvell's former pamphlets. Disagreeing principally about the tolerance of religious dissenters, Marvell, in a vitriolic display of poetic wit, accuses Parker of various physiological and intellectual shortcomings that cause him to misinterpret Marvell's writing. Calling Parker "a meer Word-pecker," Marvell address his political advisory's arrogance and corrupt humoral disposition: You have contrary to all Architecture and good Oeconomy made a Snowhouse in your upper Room: which indeed was Philosophically done of you, seeing you bear your head so high as if it were in or above the middle Region, and so you thought it secure from melting. But you did not at the same time consider that your Brain is so hot, that the Wit is dissolv'd by it, and is always dripping away at the Icicles of your Nose. But it freezes again I confess as soon as it falls down, and hence it proceeds that there is no passage in my Book, deep or shallow, but with a chill and key-cold conceit you can ice it in a moment, and slide shere over it without scratches.
The French Translations of Thomson's The Seasons, 1754–1818
Translation and Literature, 2018
Between 1754 and 1818 Thomson's poem was translated into French four times in full and more often in part. This article surveys this history, characterizing its phases, and attends to print-cultural contexts as well as the textual transformations of the translation process. Most French translators in the second half of the eighteenth century turned…
University of Jordan The Representation of Nature in Romantic Writing
The Representation of Nature in Romantic Writing : William Blake , William Wordsworth , Lord Byron, 2020
This paper explores how the concept of 'Nature' appears in 19 th Century English literature by analysing the portrayal of nature in some of William Blake's, William Wordsworth's and Lord Byron's literary works. Nature is a recurrent thematic element in several literary movements, therefore , this paper will focus on the notion that the 19 th Century English authors utilize , as they depict this vision of nature in their literary works in an unprecedented way. In addition , this paper provides brief analyses of Blake's, Wordsworth's and Byron's literary excerpts to compare and contrast them in order to appreciate the similarities and differences in the ways in which nature was conceived by different poets in the English period of Romanticism .
Preferential Treatment of Nature in Romantic Poetry
International Journal of Advanced Research, 2022
Love for nature is one of the perennial characteristics perceived in Romantic poetry. English Romantic poets employ nature as an influential theme in their poetry: however their treatment of nature does not sound to be similar. This article aims at differentiating English Romantic poets preferential treatment of nature succinctly by including ten poems of five noted English Romantic poets, namely Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats. This article concludes that nature for Wordsworth is a sort of God or Goddess for Coleridge it is an expression of the mystical power for Byron it is a reflection of mankind for Shelley it is a healing power and for Keats it is a source of sensuousness inflaming sensual pleasures.