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Tracing ideas of the sublime in American literature from Puritan writings to the postmodern epoch, Rob Wilson demonstrates that the North American landscape has been the ground for political as well as aesthetic transport. He takes a distinctly historical approach and explores the ways in which experiences of the American landscape instill desire for other kinds of vastness: self-expansion, national expansion, and American political power. As Wallace Stevens put it, the American will takes "dominion everywhere." Wilson sets the stage for his "genealogy" with a discussion of the classical notion of the sublime (taken primarily from Longinus) and the ways that notion was pragmatically transfor...
In a new account of the relationship between Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Christina Zwarg recreates a feminist conversation that has gone unheard. In Zwarg's view, the intimate, yet restrained, letters between the two writers are most significant in confronting the challenges posed by gender and desire. Focusing on their exploration of Charles Fourier's utopianism and particularly his concept of "passionate attraction," Zwarg offers the only detailed reading of Emerson's letters to Fuller.
The Riddle in the Poem is a study of the ramifications of riddles and riddle elements in the context of selected twentieth-century poetry. It includes works by Francis Ponge, Wallace Stevens, Richard Wilbur, Rainer M. Rilke, and Henrikas Radauskas. This book enlarges the scope of riddles as a "root of lyric" by connecting it with the folkloristic concept of "riddling," essentially a question and answer series, and by tracing the influence of the root in poetic methodology. The Riddle in the Poem may be defined as an attempt to advance the notion, which has been discussed in previous folkloristic and literary studies, which riddle as the root of lyric manifests itself in various ways.
Is the Sublime Sustainable? introduces the key points of debate around the sublime while opening new avenues for future inquiry, especially through its comparative aesthetics approach. In it, you will discover how thinking on the sublime emerged historically and then engage with the recent critical scholarship on the topic, including from the fields of theology, philosophy, and literature. The critiques of the sublime are then expanded in dialogue with perspectives from Japanese aesthetics and art, shaping the argument that what is needed today is a sublime that enriches human lives by cultivating profound, participative relationships.
In this book Robert R. Clewis shows how certain crucial concepts in Kant's aesthetics and practical philosophy - the sublime, enthusiasm, freedom, empirical and intellectual interests, the idea of a republic - fit together and deepen our understanding of Kant's philosophy. He examines the ways in which different kinds of sublimity reveal freedom and indirectly contribute to morality, and discusses how Kant's account of natural sublimity suggests that we have an indirect duty with regard to nature. Unlike many other studies of these themes, this book examines both the pre-critical Observations and the remarks that Kant wrote in his copy of the Observations. Finally, Clewis takes seriously Kant's claim that enthusiasm is aesthetically sublime, and shows how this clarifies Kant's views of the French Revolution. His book will appeal to all who are interested in Kant's philosophy.
Patricia Rae's study, while accepting Rorty's view that there is philosophical solidarity between pragmatism and modernism, rejects his interpretation of both as forms of dogmatic skepticism. If pragmatism and modernism coincide, Rae argues, the case of these three writers suggests that the intersection lies not in a rejection of "truthfulness to experience" but in a cautious respect for it.
Often considered America's greatest twentieth-century poet, Wallace Stevens is without a doubt the Anglo-modernist poet whose work has been most scrutinized from a philosophical perspective. Wallace Stevens and the Limits of Reading and Writing both synthesizes and extends the critical understanding of Stevens's poetry in this respect. Arguing that a concern with the establishment and transgression of limits goes to the heart of this poet's work, Bart Eeckhout traces both the limits of Stevens's poetry and the limits of writing as they are explored by that poetry. Stevens's work has been interpreted so variously and contradictorily that critics must first address the question of limits to th...
Written by one of the world’s leading theorists in ecocriticism, this manifesto provides a critical summary of the ecocritical movement. A critical summary of the emerging discipline of “ecocriticism”. Written by one of the world’s leading theorists in ecocriticism. Traces the history of the ecocritical movement from its roots in the 1970s through to its diversification and proliferation today. Takes account of different ecocritical positions and directions. Describes major tensions within ecocriticism and addresses major criticisms of the movement. Looks to the future of ecocriticism, proposing that discourses of the environment should become a permanent part of literary and cultural studies.
The sublime in literature is described as the sense of awe that is evoked in the presence of great power and grandeur in nature or in art. In this engaging new volume, the role of the sublime is discussed in ""Emma"", ""Ode to the West Wind"", ""Song of Myself"", and many other works. Featuring original essays and excerpts from previously published critical analyses, each book in the new Bloom's ""Literary Themes"" series gives students valuable insight into the title's subject theme.