Original scientific paper
Politics as absence in Tintern Abbey and Mont Blanc
Martina Domines Veliki
orcid.org/0000-0001-8637-4414
Abstract
This paper will take as its starting point the analysis of two complementary poems,
by two Romantic writers, Wordsworth and Shelley. The comparative analysis of their
two greatest ‘nature’ poems, namely ‘Tintern Abbey’ and ‘Mont Blanc’ is in many
ways justified by the fact that Wordsworth was seen by Shelley as his literary father
and ‘Mont Blanc’ is Shelley’s response to ‘Tintern Abbey’. In order to highlight the
idea that in both poems ‘nature’ acts as an empty signifier and thus questions rather
than asserts their radical potential, I want to focus on the controlling power of politics
which is absent from these poems. This type of reading then becomes an extension
of the new historicist view that most Romantic poems occlude their involvement in
historical relations and shows that they cannot be read without taking into account
the forces of politics.
Keywords
Wordsworth; Shelley; Tintern Abbey; Mont Blanc; new historicism; politics
Hrčak ID:
230131
URI
Publication date:
3.6.2019.
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