The Scottish Aesthetics Forum is delighted to announce its next lecture:
Dr Peter Lamarque (York)
“Experiencing Poetry”
Wednesday, 28 March, 2018, 4:15 – 6:00pm
7 Bristo Square, Room 1.203
University of Edinburgh
The lecture is free and open to all!
Abstract: “The paper explores how the idea of experience, with primary focus on aesthetic experience, might apply to literature in general and poetry in particular. Any kind of sensory experience seems at best marginal, for example, to the novel. To speak of the experience of a novel seems not to be speaking of sensory experience. Yet the aesthetic—certainly aesthetic experience—seems closely tied to the sensory. Do we then mean something different when talking of experience in the literary realm? Maybe. But poetry lends itself more readily to talk of experience, aesthetic experience in particular and even sensory experience. Is not much of the pleasure of poetry bound up with the sounds, rhythms and textures of poetic language? And is that not both sensory and aesthetic? Although this might seem incontestable it also hints at a kind of formalism in the aesthetic appraisal of poetry. If our focus is on sounds and rhythms what becomes of poetic subject matter? Is that excluded from aesthetic appraisal? That seems undesirable in itself, especially so for those who promote the indivisibility of form and content in poetry. Can form-content unity in a poem afford aesthetic experience? If so, how is that explained? If not, then are we back to a different kind of experience (more like the novel?) in associating poetry with aesthetic experience?”
About the speaker: Peter Lamarque is Professor of Philosophy at the University of York. He has worked extensively on the philosophy of literature, notably on the ‘thought theory’ solution to the paradox of fiction and his development with Stein Olsen of the ‘fictive stance’ approach to questions of truth in and engagement with literary fiction. In addition to many articles, he’s the author of several books including The Opacity of Narrative, The Philosophy of Literature, and Fictional Points of View. Most recently he has focused on the philosophy of poetry, including publications on lyric poetry and Shakespeare’s sonnets.
Additional information: The lecture will be followed by a dinner with our speaker. If you would like to attend the dinner, please contact the organisers by 23 March.
*** There are limited funds to cover dinner expenses for two students, offered on a first-come-first-served basis. ***
– To contact the organisers: scottishaestheticsforum@gmail.com.
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