J Hist Ideas. 2020;81(4):599-620. doi: 10.1353/jhi.2020.0027.
Mill's statement that "poetry is overheard" is often read as a definition of the lyric in miniature and is associated with social retreat. Yet Mill saw his encounter with the Wordsworthian lyric as a corrective to utilitarian social theory, and as a supplement to Adam Smith's theory of sympathy. Mill suggests that the writings of James Mill and Jeremy Bentham overlook the bond connecting individuals to one another. He reconceives communal aspects of feeling by drawing on Wordsworth's poetry as the fulfillment of Smith's affective account of social relations, a development which anticipates affect theory.
米尔的“诗歌是被偷听的”这一表述常被当作微型抒情诗的定义，并与社会逃避联系在一起。然而，米尔将他与华兹华斯抒情诗的相遇视为对功利主义社会理论的修正，也是对亚当·斯密同情理论的补充。米尔认为，詹姆斯·米尔和杰里米·边沁的著作忽视了将个体彼此联系起来的纽带。他通过借鉴华兹华斯的诗歌来重新构想情感的共同方面，这是对史密斯关于社会关系的情感解释的补充，这一发展预示着情感理论。
