Rowan Boyson

Wordsworth and the enlightenment idea of pleasure

Introduction Part I. Pleasure Philosophy: 1. Shaftesbury, Kant and the sensus communis 2. Rousseau, Wollstonecraft and pleasure as power Part II. Wordsworths Common Pleasure: 3. Poetics of pleasure in the Lyrical Ballads 4. Economies of affect in The Prelude and Home at Grasmere 5. The politics of happiness in The Excursion Conclusion Bibliography Index.

Shelley’s Republic of Odours: Aesthetic and Political Dimensions of Scent in ‘The Sensitive-Plant’

Abstract Shelley’s poetry and prose make frequent reference to odour and fragrance, and this essay offers the first extended consideration of the theme since A. C. Bradley’s short 1929 essay. It explores the analogy between metre and scent made by Shelley and Hegel, offering a close reading of ‘The Sensitive-Plant’ focused on its dolnik prosody and its use of synaesthesia. The materialist and scientific connotations of smell are considered with reference to ‘My Lost William’ and the work of Thomas Reid and Humphry Davy. The essay argues that Shelley’s odoriferous language helps us to rethink the place of the senses in critical theory.