Celestial Variability and Keats's ‘Bright star’

IF 0.3 2区 文学 0 LITERATURE Romanticism Pub Date : 2023-10-01 DOI:10.3366/rom.2023.0611
Meegan Hasted
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Abstract

Early in his career the astronomer William Herschel argued that the appearance of ‘so many changes among the stars’ – stars materialising out of nowhere and stars gradually vanishing, stars fluctuating in brightness and stars changing position – ‘should cause a strong suspicion that most probably every star in the heaven is more or less in motion’. Given his knowledge of modern astronomy, Keats's plea to be as ‘stedfast’ as the bright star might be considered deliberately retrograde: the aesthetic privileging of an ideal by a sky-gazing lover indifferent to empirical science. This essay argues, on the contrary, that the ‘Bright star’ sonnet seizes upon a figurative paradox produced in a period of epistemological transition. The indeterminacy of the bright star image introduces an affective dimension to the sonnet more in keeping with its Petrarchan roots and captures an essential quality of even steadfast lovers: changeability.
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天体变化与济慈的“亮星”
天文学家威廉·赫歇尔(William Herschel)在其职业生涯的早期提出,“恒星之间如此多的变化”的出现——恒星凭空出现,恒星逐渐消失,恒星亮度波动,恒星位置变化——“应该引起强烈的怀疑,即很可能天空中的每一颗恒星都或多或少地在运动”。考虑到他对现代天文学的了解,济慈恳求像明亮的星星一样“坚定”,这可能被认为是故意的逆行:一个对经验科学漠不关心的天文爱好者对理想的审美特权。相反,这篇文章认为,“明亮的星星”十四行诗抓住了在认识论过渡时期产生的比喻悖论。明亮的星星形象的不确定性为十四行诗引入了一种情感维度,更符合它的彼得拉克根源,并抓住了坚定恋人的基本品质:变化无常。
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来源期刊
Romanticism
Romanticism LITERATURE-
CiteScore
0.30
自引率
0.00%
发文量
44
期刊介绍: The most distinguished scholarly journal of its kind edited and published in Britain, Romanticism offers a forum for the flourishing diversity of Romantic studies today. Focusing on the period 1750-1850, it publishes critical, historical, textual and bibliographical essays prepared to the highest scholarly standards, reflecting the full range of current methodological and theoretical debate. With an extensive reviews section, Romanticism constitutes a vital international arena for scholarly debate in this liveliest field of literary studies.
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