Philosophical Connections

Neoclassical And Romantic Verse Cultures Are Often Assumed To Sit In An Oppositional Relationship To One Another With The Latter Amounting To A Hostile Reaction Against The Former. But There Are In Fact A Good Deal Of Continuities Between The Two Movements Ones That Strike At The Heart Of The Evolution Of Verse Forms In The Period. This Element Proposes That The Mid-Eighteenth-Century Poet Mark Akenside And His Hugely Influential Pleasures Of Imagination Represent A Case Study In The Deep Connections Between Neoclassicism And Romanticism. Akenside''S Poem Offers A Vital Illustration Of How Verse Was A Rival To Philosophy In The Period Offering A New Perspective On Philosophic Problems Of Appearance Or How The World ''Seems To Be''. What Results From This Is A Poetic Form Of Knowing: One That Foregrounds Feeling Over Fact That Connects Neoclassicism And Romanticism And That Akenside Called The Imagination''S ''Pleasures''.