Poetics and the philosophy of reflection : with particular attention to W.H. Auden's The sea and the mirror as it reflects back to its predecessors and forward to postmodernism
This thesis examines how a poetics may emerge from both the possibilities and the limits peculiar to the metaphor of the mirror and the concept of reflection. Working from a particular history of Western ideas that moves from Plato through to postmodernism, the examination focuses on W.H. Auden, whose treatment and utilization of reflection within The Sea and the Mirror, a long and variegated poem and commentary upon Shakespeare's late play The Tempest, act as a template for an expanded notion of poetics. It is argued that this poetics affirms the creative process by a breaking down of the borders between reflection and what is being reflected, thereby necessitating a reinscribing of those borders self-reflexively and ironically, and in tum necessitating a reevaluation of the respective tasks and boundaries of philosopher, artist and theologian. As suggested by Auden and The Sea and the Mirror, this poetics draws upon texts from a variety of historical periods and a variety of theoretical disciplines. The texts investigated in this thesis include: the ~text~ of a certain history of ideas defmed as the philosophy of reflection; Shakespeare's The Tempest; Robert Browning's Caliban Upon Setebos; Auden's later
Hass, Andrew Wilfred
PR English literature
Poetics and the philosophy of reflection : with particular attention to W.H. Auden's The sea and the mirror as it reflects back to its predecessors and forward to postmodernism. This thesis examines how a poetics may emerge from both the possibilities and the limits peculiar to the metaphor of the mirror and the concept of reflection. Working from a particular history of Western ideas that moves from Plato through to postmodernism, the examination focuses on W.H. Auden, whose treatment and utilization of reflection within The Sea and the Mirror, a long and variegated poem and commentary upon Shakespeare's late play The Tempest, act as a template for an expanded notion of poetics. It is argued that this poetics affirms the creative process by a breaking down of the borders between reflection and what is being reflected, thereby necessitating a reinscribing of those borders self-reflexively and ironically, and in tum necessitating a reevaluation of the respective tasks and boundaries of philosopher, artist and theologian. As suggested by Auden and The Sea and the Mirror, this poetics draws upon texts from a variety of historical periods and a variety of theoretical disciplines. The texts investigated in this thesis include: the ~text~ of a certain history of ideas defmed as the philosophy of reflection; Shakespeare's The Tempest; Robert Browning's Caliban Upon Setebos; Auden's later
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