Emma - Romantic Imagination
Jane Austen�s Emma and the Romantic Imagination "To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour." �William Blake, �Auguries of Innocence� Imagination, to the people of the eighteenth century of whom William Blake and Jane Austen are but two, involves the twisting of the relationship between fantasy and reality to arrive at a fantastical point at which a world can be extrapolated from a single grain of sand, and all the time that has been and ever will be can be compressed into the space of an hour. What is proposed by Blake is clearly ludicrous�it runs against the very tide of reason and sense�and yet the ...
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both rely on the fact that "[t]he correspondence of world and subject is at the center of any sensibility story, yet that correspondence is often twisted in unusual and terrifying shapes," (Edward Young, 1741). The heroine of Austen�s novel, Emma Woodhouse, a girl of immense imagination, maintains it by keeping up with her reading and art because, as Young contends, these are the mediums through which imagination is chiefly expressed by manipulating the relationships between the world and the subject at hand. However, even in this, Emma�s imagination falls short. "The soul might have the capacity to take in the �world� or the �atom� if it weren�t for the body�s limitations getting in the way," (Joseph Addison, 1712). As Addison supposes, the limitations of Emma�s body keeps her from seeing the truths that her soul, if let free, would show her. One of these is that Frank Churchill, a handsome and well-bred man, is insincere and fake, while Mr. Knightley truly loves her like no ...
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Emma - Romantic Imagination. (2005, September 20). Retrieved June 19, 2025, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Emma-Romantic-Imagination/33585
"Emma - Romantic Imagination." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 20 Sep. 2005. Web. 19 Jun. 2025. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Emma-Romantic-Imagination/33585>
"Emma - Romantic Imagination." Essayworld.com. September 20, 2005. Accessed June 19, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Emma-Romantic-Imagination/33585.
"Emma - Romantic Imagination." Essayworld.com. September 20, 2005. Accessed June 19, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Emma-Romantic-Imagination/33585.
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