The Literature of Pity

ISBN-13: 9780748639496 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014 / 256 str.

David Punter

Opis

Pity represents a combination of fear, helplessness and overwhelming agitation. It is a term which suffuses our everyday lives; it is also a dangerous term hovering between approval of sympathy and disapproval of emotional wallowing (as in 'self-pity'). David Punter here engages with a wealth of theoretical ideas to explore the literature of pity, including Freud, Derrida, Levinas and others. His chapters cover "Distinguishing Pity," the Aristotelian framework; Buddhism and pity; the pieta in the Middle Ages and Renaissance; Shakespeare on pity; Milton's pitiless Christianity; pity and charity in the early novel; Blake's views on pity; the Victorian debate, from Austen to Dickens and George Eliot; Brecht and Chekhov on pity and self-pity; "war, and the pity of war"; Jean Rhys and Stevie Smith; pity, immigration and the colony; and finally three contemporary texts by Michel Faber, Kazuo Ishiguro and Cormac McCarthy.

Spis treści

Preface; Chapter One: Distinguishing pity; Chapter Two: Pity and terror: the Aristotelian framework; Chapter Three: Pietà; Chapter Four: Shakespeare on pity; Chapter Five: The eighteenth century; Chapter Six: Blake: ‘Pity would be no more …’; Chapter Seven: Aspects of Victoriana; Chapter Eight: Chekhov and Brecht: pity and self-pity; Chapter Nine: ‘War, and the pity of war’: Wilfred Owen, David Jones, Primo Levi; Chapter Ten: Reflections on Algernon Blackwood’s Gothic; Chapter Eleven: Pity’s cold extremities: Jean Rhys and Stevie Smith; Chapter Twelve: Reclaiming the savage night; Chapter Thirteen: ‘Pity the poor immigrant’: pity, diaspora, the colony; Chapter Fourteen: Lyric and pity; After thought: under the dome; Bibliography.