Figurations of Inspiration, Authorization, and Auratization in English Literature

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In early modern English literature, the focus of this project, processes of sacralization and desacralization are closely intertwined. Their interdependence has hitherto been obscured by a master narrative of secularization, according to which literature increasingly gained independence from religious authority. By contrast, the project will show that there is a constant and simultaneous bi-directional influence: sacred poetry makes use of procedures that were developed in secular poetry in order to gain authority (e.g. the authentic expression of emotion) while secular literature pursues strategies of authorization which can only be understood in the context of the sacred concepts from which they derive. Poetic authority is thus both different from, and a form of, sacred authority. The central question of the research project is: In what manner and in which (con-)texts does the authorization of literary production by de/sacralizing (self-)ascriptions take place? In close connection with the other projects of the research unit, these processes of literary de/sacralization will be investigated by analysing specific figurations in a praxeological perspective. This perspective becomes manifest both in the literary representation of practice (e.g. of prayer) and in the social practise into which literary texts are integrated and which is influenced by them (e.g. by their rhetorical power). While authority and authorization centrally indicate processes of de/sacralization, the relevance of these processes for the production of texts can be assessed by the way in which concepts of inspiration are evoked and negotiated. The development from metaphors of inspiration to inspiration as a metaphor should not be equated with desacralization alone: metaphor is an important aspect of the auratization of language which contributes to the sacralization of literary texts.The aims of the project will be pursued in two interconnected areas: In both early modern poetry and drama, the ascription and assumption of authority are pursued by means of interdependent strategies of sacralization and desacralization. In poetry, this happens e.g. through the invocation of divine cooperation while desacralizing the Muses, through the ambiguity of speech acts (poetry and/as prayer), and through the mystical qualities ascribed to language which is both sacralized and enables the poet to assume authority independent of sacred scripture. Drama is simultaneously conceptualized in opposition to sacred service and derives its authority from processes of (self-)sacralization. This double movement can be seen in the moral and political authority of allegorical theatre (from the late medieval morality play to the Stuart court masque), in the ambiguously de/sacralizing role of magic and spiritual power represented on stage and by the stage, and techniques of dialogue in drama by which the characters become unwitting mouthpieces of a higher, sacred order.