眠りは心を封じたか―ワーズワスと主体のしつこさ

抄録

Recent studies of English Romanticism, such as historicism or ecocriticism, tend to obliterate the philosophical problem of the modern subject or consider the abandonment of such an inquiry to be morally right. This essay aims to oppose these tendencies by elucidating its persistent and crucial role in understanding the works of the Romantics.

  We will first explore the current philosophical context of the debate. As Robert Pippin cogently points out, the modern subject has been condemned and labeled by many contemporary critics as merely a “bourgeois” fabrication that indulges itself in epicurean egotism, whose illusory nature must be revealed. Given these criticisms, recent Romantic studies tend to underestimate the importance of the autonomous subject that forms the basis of our human freedom, thus disregarding the Romantics’ ambivalence toward its value.

  This ambivalence becomes apparent when we analyze Wordsworth’s “A slumber did my spirit seal,” one of the most famous and controversial “Lucy poems,” because “slumber” is the state in which we habitually abandon our conscious self. The performative power of the poem creates a narcotic atmosphere, effectively sealing the “spirit” of the poet (and readers); however, it also leaves space for the irony that regards such abandonment as analogous to death in terms of human freedom. Thus Wordsworth, dealing with this conundrum, uses two logics that are ontologically different and mutually exclusive: the abandonment of the subject and its persistence.

  Lastly, through the detailed analysis of “Three years she grew in sun and shower” and “There was a boy,” we will see the ambivalent state of the poetic imagination, which is both God-given (inhuman) and merely human. The ecstatic state of “slumber” enables the poet to touch the infinite in the realm of eternal truth, but it remains all too human so as not to entirely obliterate worldly notions of freedom. As a result of these readings, I hope to clarify the importance of not only elegantly but also naively re-engaging with the problem of the Romantic subject in the present state of literary criticism.