The Contest between Poet and Priest

Geoffrey Hartman, FBA, Yale University

Chair: Elinor Shaffer, FBA, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

Wednesday, 3 October 2007
7pm to 8.30pm, followed by a drinks reception

To be held a the British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace,
London SW1

Geoffrey Hartman, one of the British Academy's Corresponding Fellows, has led the refiguring of our conceptions of Romanticism since his ground-breaking book Wordsworth's Poetry (1964). Professor Hartman will give a lecture reconsidering the contest between religion and poetry in the eighteenth century and Romanticism, especially as represented by Addison, Blake, and Coleridge. At issue is the poet's vocation as it asserts itself in a freer visionary poetry and seeks to displace 'the primeval Priest's assumed power' (Blake) by reappropriating, forging, or forging anew, an ancient, logos-powered voice.

Geoffrey Hartman is Sterling Professor of English and Comparative Literature (Emeritus) and Senior Research Scholar at Yale. He has held distinguished visiting appointments at many universities in the U.S. and abroad, and is a Chevalier, Ordre des Arts et Lettres of the French Ministry of Culture. Among his other awards are the Christian Gauss Prize for Wordsworth's Poetry, the René Wellek Prize for The Fateful Question of Culture, and the 2006 Truman Capote Prize for The Geoffrey Hartman Reader. He is also a Co-founder of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies and continues as its Project Director.

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