The Poetical Works Of Mark Akinside: With His Life

by Mark Akenside

The Poetical Works Of Mark With His Life collects Mark Akenside's celebrated didactic poem The Pleasures of Imagination, together with biographical material on the English poet. The central work, The Pleasures of Imagination, is an extended philosophical poem in three books (first published in 1744) that explores how the imagination yields pleasure through contact with beauty, grandeur, and truth, and how these pleasures extend into art, science, and moral life. Akenside argues that imagination links the seen world to higher realities by uniting philosophy and poetry, and he develops a theory of beauty, novelty, and the sublime, drawing on Platonism, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Longinus. The poem also surveys the relation of imagination to memory, the arts (poetry, painting, music), and the passions, including a lengthy allegorical narrative in the second book and a third book addressing ridicule and moral taste. In addition to the poem, the volume contains biographical notes on Akinside (here rendered as Akinside in the text), including his early education, medical studies, friendships (notably with Mr. Dyson and Hollis), scholarly honors, and death. The edition positions the poet within the 18th?century liberal tradition and the defense of civil liberty and humane learning.

Genres: Poetry

356 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Mark Akenside was an English poet and physician.