Project description
Unravelling the emotions woven into 17th century poetry
What makes a poem move us and stir something inside four centuries after it was written? Researchers are diving into this mystery by exploring the emotional power, or affect, woven through 17th-century English metaphysical poetry. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the AFM project argues that affect is built into the very form, texture, and cultural fabric of these poems. Specifically, AFM is developing a method of differential reading, blending insights from affect studies, new formalism, cognitive science and history. This approach will uncover the emotional intricacies not only in well-known metaphysical verse, but also in works by lesser-known women poets of the time, showing how poems reflect on feeling itself.
Objective
This research project on Affect, Form and Matter in 17th-Century Lyric Poetry (AFM) aims to trace the formal, material and textu(r)al entanglements of affect in English metaphysical poetry and to find a new methodology of reading (for) affect in literary texts. The project’s fundamental claims are that (1) affect is entangled in a text’s form, materiality and cultural-historical contexts and that (2) it is a constitutive element of metaphysical poetry and accounts for the particularities of this style of early modern writing. To come to terms with affect’s complex textual entanglements, a new methodology, tentatively called “differential reading,” will be developed. Differential reading is an integrative method that combines approaches from affect studies, new formalism, new materialism and cognitive studies but also pays heed to the cultural-historical contexts of production and reception that impact on a text’s affectivity. Differential reading will serve as the central approach to metaphysical poetry as well as to poetry by 17th-century women writers who are not typically classified as ‘metaphysical,’ but whose poems show similar affective-stylistic entanglements. The project will result in differential readings of a range of 17th-century poems that will show the centrality of affects to the metaphysical style. Poetic affect will be traced across different modes and motifs that are both key to metaphysical poetry and to the experience of affect, namely seeing and hearing as sensory modes of affective encounter; time and space as affectively inflected modes of perception and orientation; and material objects as cultural-historical sites of affective encounters. Finally, the project will also consider how these poems metapoetically reflect their own engagement with affect. The project’s results will be of use not only for the field of early modern literature, but for researchers in literature and affect and in the wider field of affect studies alike.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project has not yet been classified with EuroSciVoc.
Be the first one to suggest relevant scientific fields and help us improve our classification service
You need to log in or register to use this function
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01
See all projects funded under this callCoordinator
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
NE1 7RU Newcastle Upon Tyne
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.