The Idea of Prospect and the Poetic Imagination in 17th & 18th Century England

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The aims of our study were to consider the phenomenological aspects of the unit idea of prospect in 17th & 18th century England with paintings, descriptive sketches, and dramas for the background.Shakespearean dramas which include political phases inherent in the period between the Elizabethan age and the Jacobean period show the shift of the vantage point of view. In The Tempest, for instance, Prospero's vantage point is always oscillating between that of King and that of the audience. So the so called Shakespearean perspective is a method to modify aesthetically the distance which exists between the audience and the actors. This fact enabled us to assume that there should have been behind the agoraphobic world picture. The vantage point of survey of the 18th century was that of the deistic Supreme which is compared to the wheel-machine. This machine works depending on each other. The sequence of gradation is the chief principle of this kind of machine. This idea covers the whole natural world based on the theory of the picturesque beauty. From these above facts we have decided to report on John Denham, Andrew Marvell, and Richard Blackmore.The difference between Denham's fixed vantage point of view and Marvell's circuitous vantage point well shows the conflicts between private life and political one which lurked in the change from Absolutism to Republicanism. Blackmore in the 18th century was a man who picked up the position of the deistic god who dominates the whole world which consists of taxas. This also revealed the principle of status quo to govern the world symbolized by Pope's words, "whatever is is right." Our next step will be to discuss the problem of the view point and the sight.