Download or read book Narcissism and Selfhood in Medieval French Literature written by Nicholas Ealy and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers analyses of texts from medieval France influenced by Ovid’s myth of Narcissus including the Lay of Narcissus, Alain de Lille’s Plaint of Nature, René d’Anjou’s Love-Smitten Heart, Chrétien de Troyes’s Story of the Grail and Guillaume de Machaut’s Fountain of Love. Together, these texts form a corpus exploring human selfhood as wounded and undone by desire. Emerging in the twelfth century in Western Europe, this discourse of the wounded self has survived with ever-increasing importance, informing contemporary methods of theoretical inquiry into mourning, melancholy, trauma and testimony. Taking its cue from the moment Narcissus bruises himself upon learning he cannot receive the love he wants from his reflection, this book argues that the construct of the wounded self emphasizes fantasy over reality, and that only through the world of the imagination—of literature itself—can our narcissistic injuries seemingly be healed and desire fulfilled.
Download or read book Medieval Futurity written by Will Rogers and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-11-09 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays asks contributors to take the capaciousness of the word "queer" to heart in order to think about what medieval queers would have looked like and how they may have existed on the margins and borders of dominant, normative sexuality and desire. The contributors work with recent trends in queer medieval studies, blending together modern concepts of sexuality and desire with the queer configurations of eroticism, desire, and materiality as they might have existed for medieval audiences.
Download or read book Violence Trauma and Memory written by Alexandra Onuf and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-10-03 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines late medieval and early modern warfare in France, the Hispanic World, and the Dutch Republic through the lens of trauma and memory studies. The essays, focusing on history, literature, and visual culture, demonstrate how people living with wartime violence processed and remembered the trauma of war.
Download or read book Chaucer s Comic Providence written by Janet Thormann and published by punctum books. This book was released on 2023-04-17 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chaucer's Comic Providence presents readings of five of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales that dramatize sexual division and the lack of rapport between the sexes. These readings are founded on the psychoanalytic thinking of Jacques Lacan in his rereading of Freud and are motivated by Thormann's conviction that Chaucer understood what psychoanalysis would come to study as an unconscious operating in the subject that is independent of conscious control and desire. For psychoanalysis, the subject is interminably engaged with unconscious sexual difference and with what Lacan saw as the absence of sexual rapport. Chaucer's Comic Providence analyzes Chaucer's plots of sexual adventures, mishaps, and surprise to show how the five tales dramatize the lack of symmetry and absence of accord between the sexes. Ultimately, Thormann's interest here is in the ways these five narratives represent and deal with sexual division, in their means of handling what, in any case, cannot be avoided or mastered. Consequently, the resolutions of the narratives sponsor an ethics of desire: they affirm sexual pleasure and acknowledge misprision and limitation, but they do not compromise, close down, or finish with incompatibility, contraction, and limitation. Her reading, then, claims that Chaucer's poetry already reveals the unconscious that Freud is credited with discovering. As well, Chaucer not only anticipates Lacan's pronouncement that "the unconscious is structured like a language," but also his emphasis on unconscious sexual difference and the absence of rapport between the sexes. With few exceptions, while there has been much consideration of gender in Chaucer's stories, contemporary criticism of Chaucer has remained inimical or, at the least, largely indifferent, to psychoanalysis, yet because it considers both difference and continuity, change and perpetuation, and because it incorporates psychic processes, motives, functions, and dynamics operating outside of conscious awareness, psychoanalysis offers a wider range for analysis of Chaucer's tales than does gender theory alone. Chaucer's Comic Providence also addresses the unexpected, surprising, and providentially comic resolutions of Chaucer's tales, the concomitant abeyance of sexual conflicts, and the links between emergence and abeyance, which issue in the hope of a beneficent future.
Download or read book Living Death in Medieval French and English Literature written by Jane Gilbert and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-17 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval literature contains many figures caught at the interface between life and death - the dead return to place demands on the living, while the living foresee, organize or desire their own deaths. Jane Gilbert's original study examines the ways in which certain medieval literary texts, both English and French, use these 'living dead' to think about existential, ethical and political issues. In doing so, she shows powerful connections between works otherwise seen as quite disparate, including Chaucer's Book of the Duchess and Legend of Good Women, the Chanson de Roland and the poems of Francois Villon. Written for researchers and advanced students of medieval French and English literature, this book provides original, provocative interpretations of canonical medieval texts in the light of influential modern theories, especially Lacanian psychoanalysis, presented in an accessible and lively way.
Download or read book The Self as Muse written by Alexander Mathas and published by Bucknell University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-22 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While there are countless philosophical and psychological studies that focus on sources of the self, narcissism has found relatively little attention in a pre-Freudian context. The Self as Muse fills this gap by examining various aspects of narcissism and their significance for the outpouring of creativity in late eighteenth and nineteenth-century German literature. In many Eighteenth-century works of the period narcissism refers to the creation of an idealized image of the self and the desire to merge with this image. It provided an impetus for poetic production as writers resorted to the Greek myth of Narcissus to express what they perceived as the inner workings of their soul. Yet they were also acutely aware of the vain, and therefore narcissistic, motivations for their explorations of the self. While those influenced by the Pietist tradition attempted to distinguish between an 'unselfish' self-scrutiny and self-indulging vanity, others like Goethe took advantage of narcissism's creative potential and integrated it into their aesthetic endeavors. The abundance of confessional and autobiographical accounts, the burgeoning of poetry drawing on personal experience, the emergence of a type of drama that is based on empathy, and the concern with an individual's ability to control one's senses and emotions in general testify to an unprecedented interest in notions of the self in German literature. MathSs explains the emergence of narcissism in the literature of the period as a sense-inspired concept that aims to bring about a better comprehension of both the self and other human beings, and how writers used narcissism to improve the moral behavior of their readers. It examines eighteenth-century representations of narcissism against the background of Freudian and post-Freudian notions of the concept, and explores narcissism as a creative process that engages both reader and writer in the production of meaning. By showing narcissism's pervasive allure for a broad array of literary productions, MathSs shows that narcissism is a constitutive force not only in literary production but also in the construction of modern subjectivity. Yet this construction is by no means complete and invites the reader to strive toward the illusive image of an ideal.
Download or read book MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures written by and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 1144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Private Self written by Arnold H. Modell and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of the self is the subject of intense debate in psychoanalysis - as it is in neuro-science, cognitive science, and philosophy. In The Private Self Arnold Modell, a leading thinker in American psychoanalysis, studies selfhood from the inside by examining variations on the theme of the self in Freud and in the work of object relations theorists, self psychologists, and neuro-scientists. His significant contribution is an interdisciplinary perspective in formulating a theory of the private self. Modell contends that the self is fundamentally paradoxical in that it is both dependent and autonomous - dependent upon social affirmation, but autonomous in generating itself from within: we create ourselves by selecting values that are endowed with private meanings. (Modell presents an extensive view of these self-generative and self-creative aspects.) The private self is an embodied self: the psychology of the self is rooted in biology. By thinking of the unconscious as a neurophysiological process and the self as the subject and object of its own experience, Modell is able to explain how identity can persist in the flux of consciousness. In arriving at his unique synthesis of psychoanalytic observations and neurobiological theory, Modell draws on the contributions of Donald Winnicott in psychoanalysis, William James in philosophy, and Gerald Edelman in neurobiology. The Private Self boldly explores the frontier between psychoanalysis and biology. In replacing the "instinct-driven" self and the "attachment-oriented" self with the "self-generating" self, the author offers an exciting and original perspective for our understanding of the mind and the brain.
Download or read book Courtly Seductions Modern Subjections written by Fidel Fajardo-Acosta and published by Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS). This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A critical analysis of courtly love and medieval troubador literature, this book claims that both traditions were instrumental in the construction of the modern subject and its preparation for life in the highly regulated societies of the modern world. Relating troubadour texts to the rise of commerce, luxury commodities, social differentiation, the centralization of authority, and the crusades, the author proposes that western romantic love, from its courtly beginnings, eroticized the forms and values of the early European commercial economy and nation-states -- playing a key role in the subjection of medieval hearts, minds, and bodies to the disciplines of emerging modern powers." -- Back cover.
Download or read book The Book of The Love Smitten Heart written by Rene D'Anjou and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available only in Middle French and German translation until now, this volume constitutes the first full-length , French-English bilingual edition of Rene of Anjou's Livre du cuers d'amours espris, including all sixteen of the celebrated color plates, a critical introduction, notes on the translation, and a comprehensive bibliography. The book tells the tale of desire and adventure as Heart -- part of Rene torn from his body by Love -- travels a complex allegorical landscape in quest of the lady Mercy, who is being held prisoner by a band of miscreants led by Refusal and Shame. Rene begs the reader to help him determine which of three entities is responsible for his torment: Fortune led him to the lady whom he loves; once he arrived, Love, in the guise of his lady's gaze, struck his heart; and Destiny insists that he reflect upon her alone. In addition to being a compelling courtly page-turner, The Book of the Love-Smitten Heart represents the rare instance in which a medieval love story is told simultaneously in three frameworks: autobiographical letter, dream vision, and quest romance. This structure makes clear the multiple logics within which the author's psychology is reflected in the story, and illustrates how the symbol of the heart, as it travels through these shifting frameworks, dramatizes vital relations linking self, desire, and writing.
Download or read book Identity written by Francis Fukuyama and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2018-09-11 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling author of The Origins of Political Order offers a provocative examination of modern identity politics: its origins, its effects, and what it means for domestic and international affairs of state In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American institutions were in decay, as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatened to destabilize the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to “the people,” who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole. Demand for recognition of one’s identity is a master concept that unifies much of what is going on in world politics today. The universal recognition on which liberal democracy is based has been increasingly challenged by narrower forms of recognition based on nation, religion, sect, race, ethnicity, or gender, which have resulted in anti-immigrant populism, the upsurge of politicized Islam, the fractious “identity liberalism” of college campuses, and the emergence of white nationalism. Populist nationalism, said to be rooted in economic motivation, actually springs from the demand for recognition and therefore cannot simply be satisfied by economic means. The demand for identity cannot be transcended; we must begin to shape identity in a way that supports rather than undermines democracy. Identity is an urgent and necessary book—a sharp warning that unless we forge a universal understanding of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continuing conflict.
Download or read book The Cosmographia of Bernardus Silvestris written by Bernardus Silvestris and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1990-11-26 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cosmographia of Bernardus Silvestris
Download or read book Performing the Self written by Katie Barclay and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: That the self is ‘performed’, created through action rather than having a prior existence, has been an important methodological intervention in our understanding of human experience. It has been particularly significant for studies of gender, helping to destabilise models of selfhood where women were usually defined in opposition to a male norm. In this multidisciplinary collection, scholars apply this approach to a wide array of historical sources, from literature to art to letters to museum exhibitions, which survive from the medieval to modern periods. In doing so, they explore the extent that using a model of performativity can open up our understanding of women’s lives and sense of self in the past. They highlight the way that this method provides a significant critique of power relationships within society that offers greater agency to women as historical actors and offers a challenge to traditional readings of women’s place in society. An innovative and wide-ranging compilation, this book provides a template for those wishing to apply performativity to women’s lives in historical context. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women’s History Review.
Download or read book From Puritanism to Postmodernism written by Richard Ruland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Widely acknowledged as a contemporary classic that has introduced thousands of readers to American literature, From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature brilliantly charts the fascinating story of American literature from the Puritan legacy to the advent of postmodernism. From realism and romanticism to modernism and postmodernism it examines and reflects on the work of a rich panoply of writers, including Poe, Melville, Fitzgerald, Pound, Wallace Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks and Thomas Pynchon. Characterised throughout by a vibrant and engaging style it is a superb introduction to American literature, placing it thoughtfully in its rich social, ideological and historical context. A tour de force of both literary and historical writing, this Routledge Classics edition includes a new preface by co-author Richard Ruland, a new foreword by Linda Wagner-Martin and a fascinating interview with Richard Ruland, in which he reflects on the nature of American fiction and his collaboration with Malclolm Bradbury. It is published here for the first time.
Download or read book Loneliness as a Way of Life written by Thomas Dumm and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-05-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “What does it mean to be lonely?” Thomas Dumm asks. His inquiry, documented in this book, takes us beyond social circumstances and into the deeper forces that shape our very existence as modern individuals. The modern individual, Dumm suggests, is fundamentally a lonely self. Through reflections on philosophy, political theory, literature, and tragic drama, he proceeds to illuminate a hidden dimension of the human condition. His book shows how loneliness shapes the contemporary division between public and private, our inability to live with each other honestly and in comity, the estranged forms that our intimate relationships assume, and the weakness of our common bonds. A reading of the relationship between Cordelia and her father in Shakespeare’s King Lear points to the most basic dynamic of modern loneliness—how it is a response to the problem of the “missing mother.” Dumm goes on to explore the most important dimensions of lonely experience—Being, Having, Loving, and Grieving. As the book unfolds, he juxtaposes new interpretations of iconic cultural texts—Moby-Dick, Death of a Salesman, the film Paris, Texas, Emerson’s “Experience,” to name a few—with his own experiences of loneliness, as a son, as a father, and as a grieving husband and widower. Written with deceptive simplicity, Loneliness as a Way of Life is something rare—an intellectual study that is passionately personal. It challenges us, not to overcome our loneliness, but to learn how to re-inhabit it in a better way. To fail to do so, this book reveals, will only intensify the power that it holds over us.
Download or read book One Century of Karl Jaspers General Psychopathology written by Giovanni Stanghellini and published by . This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2013 sees the centenary of Jaspers' foundation of psychopathology as a science with the publication of his magnum opus the Allgemeine Psychopathologie (General Psychopathology), Many of the issues concerning methodology and diagnosis are today the subject of much discussion and debate. This volume brings together leading psychiatrists and philosophers to discuss the impact of this volume, its relevance today, and the legacy it left.
Download or read book A Reader s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory written by Raman Selden and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unsurpassed as a text for upper-division and beginning graduate students, Raman Selden's classic text is the liveliest, most readable and most reliable guide to contemporary literary theory. Includes applications of theory, cross-referenced to Selden's companion volume, Practicing Theory and Reading Literature.
