Potkay, Adam
Potkay, Adam
Wordsworth's Ethics
- Year: 1990
- Publisher / Date: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012
Why read Wordsworth’s poetry—indeed, why read poetry at all? Beyond any pleasure it might give, can it make one a better or more flourishing person? These questions were never far from William Wordsworth’s thoughts. He responded in rich and varied ways, in verse and in prose, in both well-known and more obscure writings.
Wordsworth's Ethics is a comprehensive examination of the Romantic poet‘s work, delving into his desire to understand the source and scope of our ethical obligations. Adam Potkay finds that Wordsworth consistently rejects the kind of impersonal utilitarianism that was espoused by his contemporaries James Mill and Jeremy Bentham in favor of a view of ethics founded in relationships with particular persons and things.
The discussion proceeds chronologically through Wordsworth’s career as a writer—from his juvenilia through his poems of the 1830s and '40s—providing a valuable introduction to the poet’s work. The book will appeal to readers interested in the vital connection between literature and moral philosophy.
Henry Fielding: The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews
- Year: 1990
- Publisher / Date: Longman, 2007
From Longman's Cultural Editions series, The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, edited by Andrew Potkay, presents Henry Fielding's classic work along with a critical introduction and contextual materials on and from the period. Handsomely produced and affordably priced, the Longman Cultural Editions series presents classic works in provocative and illuminating contexts cultural, critical, and literary. Each Cultural Edition consists of the complete text of an important literary work, reliably edited, headed by an inviting introduction, and supplemented by helpful annotations; a table of dates to track its composition, publication, and public reception in relation to biographical, cultural and historical events; and a guide for for further inquiry and study. One Longman Cultural Edition can be packaged at no additional cost with any volume of The Longman Anthology of British Literature by Damrosch et al, or at a discount with any other Longman textbook.
The Story of Joy: From the Bible to Late Romanticism
- Year: 1990
- Publisher / Date: Cambridge UP, 2007
Joy is an experience of reunion or fulfilment, of desire at least temporarily laid to rest, of a good thing that comes to pass or seems sure to happen soon. In this wide-ranging and highly original book Adam Potkay explores the concept of joy, distinguishing it from related concepts such as happiness and ecstasy. He goes on to trace the literary and intellectual history of joy in the Western tradition, from Aristotle, the Bible and Provencal troubadours through contemporary culture, centring on British and German works from the Reformation through Romanticism. Describing the complex interconnections between literary art, ethics, and religion, Potkay offers fresh readings of Spenser, Shakespeare, Fielding, Schiller, English Romantic poets, Wilde and Yeats. Winner of the 2009 Harry Levin prize, The Story of Joy will be of special interest to scholars of the Renaissance to the late Romantic period, but will also appeal to readers interested in the changing perceptions of joy over time.
The Passion for Happiness: Samuel Johnson and David Hume
- Year: 1990
- Publisher / Date: Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2000
Although widely perceived as inhabiting different, even opposed, literary worlds, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) and David Hume (1711-1776) shared common ground as moralists. Adam Potkay traces their central concerns to Hellenistic philosophy, as conveyed by Cicero, and to earlier moderns such as Addison and Mandeville.
Johnson's and Hume's large and diverse bodies of writings, Potkay says, are unified by several key questions: What is happiness? What is the role of virtue in the happy life? What is the proper relationship between passion and reflection in the happy or flourishing individual?
In their writings, Johnson and Hume largely agree upon what flourishing means for both human beings and the communities they inhabit. They also tell a common story about the history that led up to the enlightened age of eighteenth-century Europe. On the divisive topic of religion, these two great men of letters wrote with a decorum that characterizes the Enlightenment in Britain as compared to its French counterpart. In The Passion for Happiness, Adam Potkay illuminates much that philosophers and historians do not ordinarily appreciate about Hume, and that literary scholars might not recognize about Johnson.
Black Atlantic Writers of the 18th Century: Living the New Exodus in England and the Americas
- Year: 1990
- Publisher / Date: New York: St. Martin's, 1995
This book brings together for the first time works by four Afro-Anglican writers who published between 1774 and 1789: Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, John Marrant, Ottobah Cugoano, and Olaudah Equiano. These men share a dramatic story of captivity and liberation, wayfaring and adventure.