This book argues that the theory of force elaborated in Immanuel Kant's aesthetics (and in particular, his theorization of the dynamic sublime) is of decisive importance to poetry in the nineteenth century and to the connection between poetry and philosophy over the last two centuries. Inspired by his deep engagement with the critical theory of Walter Benjamin, who especially developed this Kantian strain of thinking, Kevin McLaughlin uses this theory of force to illuminate the work of three of the most influential nineteenth-century writers in their respective national traditions: Friedrich Hölderlin, Charles Baudelaire, and Matthew Arnold. The result is a fine elucidation of Kantian theory and a fresh account of poetic language and its aesthetic, ethical, and political possibilities.

"In a brilliant exploration of the bearing of philosophy on poetry, Kevin McLaughlin traces in Kant a thinking of a special kind of force, the capacity of poetic language to exceed the grasp of empirical consciousness. His readings of Hölderlin, Baudelaire, and Matthew Arnold, an unlikely trio, are a tour de force of philosophical and poetic analysis." - Cornell University