Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1. Introduction: Subjectivity, Modernity, and the Uses of Literature

2. Romanticism, Cartesianism, Humeanism, Byronism: Stoppard’s Arcadia

3. Romantic Subjectivity in Goethe and Wittgenstein

4. Attention, Expressive Power, and Interest in Life: Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”

5. The Ends of Literary Narrative: Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo”

6. “New Centers of Reflection Are Continually Forming”: Benjamin, Sebald, and Modern Human Life in Time

Appendix: William Wordsworth: “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”

NOTES

INDEX