{"product_id":"blank-splendour-mere-existence-in-british-romanticism-9781487556044","title":"Blank Splendour: Mere Existence in British Romanticism","description":"\u003cp\u003eCertain moments in British Romantic poetry and art depict a state from which the attributes of existence - time and space, subject and object, language and visuality - have fallen away, leaving a domain prior to the world and to thought, the condition of mere existence. As \u003cem\u003eBlank Splendour\u003c\/em\u003e demonstrates, poems by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Clare as well as paintings by Turner evoke a condition that transpires in a time without time, a life without life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eDavid Collings argues that these works invite us to move beyond the subtle remnants of ontology that linger in current versions of posthuman thought, such as affect theory and speculative realism, by opening up a domain of affect without affect, a world without objects. Anticipating the philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Blanchot, these works bring into view the mode of a deconstruction that emerged before the linguistic turn, one that meditates on the blank condition underlying modernity. Ultimately, \u003cem\u003eBlank Splendour\u003c\/em\u003e reveals how these works speak to our own moment, when thought, forced to contemplate its own extinction, enters a new form of mere existence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDavid Collings\u003c\/b\u003e is a professor of English at Bowdoin College.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Toronto Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50916225024274,"sku":"9781487556044","price":62.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_0d745c4d-46b9-48ad-abbb-9c69263b8521.jpg?v=1738845021","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/blank-splendour-mere-existence-in-british-romanticism-9781487556044","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}