Articles liés à Hesitant Heroes: Private Inhibition, Cultural Crisis

Hesitant Heroes: Private Inhibition, Cultural Crisis - Couverture rigide

Ziolkowski, Theodore

 
9780801442032: Hesitant Heroes: Private Inhibition, Cultural Crisis
Couverture rigide
ISBN 10 : 0801442036 ISBN 13 : 9780801442032
Editeur : Cornell University Press, 2003

Synopsis

Why, Theodore Ziolkowski wonders, does Western literature abound with figures who experience a crucial moment of uncertainty in their actions? In this highly original and engaging work, he explores the significance of these unlikely heroes for literature and history.From Aeneas--who wavered momentarily before plunging his sword into Turnus's chest--to Hamlet, Orestes, Parzival, Wallenstein, and others, including Kafka's Josef K., Ziolkowski demonstrates that characters' private uncertainty reveals a classic opposition of binary forces. He describes how Aeneas, for example, was forced to choose between the ancient code of blood vengeance and the new civic virtues of law and justice. Ziolkowski asserts that the indecision of the characters reflects the tensions that authors observed in their own societies. Drawing on the insights of Hegel and Freud, he analyzes the ways in which these tensions represent turning points in cultural history. In stark contrast to Aeneas, Josef K. temporized for a year before his executioners thrust a knife into his heart. For Ziolkowski, the centuries separating Virgil and Kafka are ones in which the notion of the hero was transformed almost to the point of total inversion. He sheds light on this transformation and a corresponding change in literary form.

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À propos de l'auteur

Theodore Ziolkowski is Class of 1900 Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He is the author of many books, Ovid and the Moderns, Clio the Romantic Muse: Historicizing the Faculties in Germany and Hesitant Heroes: Private Inhibition, Cultural Crisis, all three from Cornell.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
Cornell University Press
Date d'édition
2003
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
0801442036
ISBN 13 
9780801442032
Reliure
Relié
Nombre de pages
184
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible