OUR THIEVISH PROGRESS TO MODERNITY
OUR THIEVISH PROGRESS TO MODERNITY

Summary/Abstract: The “eternising conceit”, as it has traditionally been termed, is frequently found in English poetry of the early modern period, deployed perhaps most effectively in the Renaissance sonnet. The term represents a convenient label for the rhetorical strategy by means of which poetic voices strive to attain permanence in the face of the merciless figure of “devouring Time”. This particular poetic device has a long and diversified literary tradition stretching back to the classical Greek and Latin poets and surviving, though more modestly, throughout the Middle Ages. Poetry that perpetuates – either itself, the “I”, or the “you/thou” of the quatorzains – does this in several distinct ways. Rather than explore the subtle differences in individual treatment, the presentation focuses on several notable and less notable examples in order to illuminate the points of permanent crisis in the project of progressing – thievishly – from the ravages of time to the artifices of eternity. In accordance with the interests of the conference, the discussion endeavours to trace the logic of the process backwards as well: from the melancholic notions of “modernity” and “time” to the spirited images of “eternity” and “pre-modernity”, voicing some critical and affective anxieties with the help of the notorious trumpet and its soul-devastating blow.

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