| Description |
xxvi, 310 pages ; 24 cm |
| Series |
Cultural memory in the present |
|
Cultural memory in the present.
|
| Contents |
Editor's Introduction: Literature as Theory -- 1. History in Saint-John Perse -- 2. Valery and Stendhal -- 3. Classicism and Voltaire's Historiography -- 4. Pride and Passion in the Contemporary Novel -- 5. Stendhal and Tocqueville -- 6. Memoirs of a Dutiful Existentialist: Simone de Beauvoir -- 7. Marcel Proust -- 8. Marivaudage, Hypocrisy, and Bad Faith -- 9. Formalism and Structuralism in Literature and the Human Sciences -- 10. Racine, Poet of Glory -- 11. Monsters and Demigods in Hugo -- 12. Bastards and the Antihero in Sartre -- 13. Critical Reflections on Literary Studies -- 14. Narcissism: The Freudian Myth Demythified by Proust -- 15. Theory and Its Terrors -- 16. Love and Hate in Chretien de Troyes' Yvain -- 17. Innovation and Repetition -- 18. Mimetic Desire in the Underground: Feodor Dostoevsky -- 19. Conversion in Literature and Christianity -- 20. The Passionate Oxymoron in Shakespeare's Romeo and juliet |
| Summary |
"Mimesis and Theory brings together twenty of Rene Girard's uncollected essays on literature and literary theory, which, along with his classic, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, have left an indelible mark on the field of literary and cultural studies. Spanning over fifty years of critical production, this anthology offers unique insights into the origin, development, and expansion of Girard's "mimetic theory" - a groundbreaking account of human interaction and of the genesis of cultural forms." "Arranged chronologically in order of publication, the essays run the gamut of Western literary culture, from Racine and Shakespeare to the existentialist writings of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. The authors who have most influenced Girard - Stendhal, Proust, and Dostoevsky - receive extended treatment. In addition, Girard's observations on the changing landscape of literary studies are chronicled in several essays devoted to psychoanalysis, formalism, structuralism, and post-structuralism." "Though at times overshadowed by his work in religious and cultural anthropology, Girard's work in the area of literary studies has been the wellspring of his thought. All of the essays contained in this volume develop the idea that the greatest authors are also the greatest students of human nature, for their artistic intuitions are generally more penetrating than the analyses of the philosophers or the social scientists. Thus Girard does not offer us a theory of literature but literature as theory."--BOOK JACKET |
| Notes |
Formerly CIP. Uk |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [291]-303) and index |
| Subject |
Literature, Modern -- History and criticism.
|
| Author |
Doran, Robert, 1968-
|
| LC no. |
2007038390 |
| ISBN |
0804755809 (cloth : alk. paper) |
|
9780804755801 (cloth : alk. paper) |
|
