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Sweet Violence
The Idea of the Tragic
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Sweet Violence
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
Ideal for readers interested in literary theory, philosophy, and cultural studies, Sweet Violence appeals to scholars, students, and general readers seeking a profound and provocative exploration of tragedy in art and life.
Providing a comprehensive study of tragedy, this book deals with both theory and practice. It explores the idea of the tragic in the novel, examining such writers as Melville, Hawthorne, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Manzoni, Goethe and Mann, as well as English novelists.
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Description
Terry Eagleton provides a comprehensive study of tragedy, from Aeschylus to Edward Albee, dealing with both theory and practice, and moving between ideas of tragedy and analyses of particular works and authors. This amazing tour-de-force steps out beyond the stage to reflect not only on tragic art but also on real-life tragedy.
It explores the idea of the tragic in the novel, examining such writers as Melville, Hawthorne, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Manzoni, Goethe and Mann, as well as English novelists. With his characteristic brilliance and inventiveness of mind, Eagleton weaves together literature, philosophy, ethics, theology, and political theory.
In so doing, he makes a major political-philosophical statement drawn from a startling range of Western thought, in the writings of Plato, St Paul, St Augustine, Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Sartre, and others. Sweet Violence takes serious issue with the idea of 'the death of tragedy', and gives a comprehensive survey of definitions of tragedy itself, arguing a radical and controversial case.
It examines notions such as justice, death, suffering, the demonic, sado-masochism, heroism, sacrifice, freedom, determinism, and modernity. Most dramatically, it looks in a new light at why tragedy gives pleasure, and explores the reasons it has so often been seen as an affirmative mode, in a way that suppresses the wretchedness and suffering it involves.
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
Sweet Violence has been praised for its intellectual ambition and breadth. Homi K. Bhabha of Harvard University calls it "a brave and bracing book" bridging secular and metaphysical concerns with a comedic spirit. The New York Times describes it as "long, discursive, packed with illustrations drawn from enormous reading in world literature," at times perverse and often funny. The Guardian hails it as "an extraordinary achievement and an inspiration," while English Studies declares it "the best book Terry Eagleton has yet written."
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780631233602
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 22 August 2002
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Wiley-Blackwell
Audience: Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 25.0mm
Width: 153.0mm
Height: 230.0mm
Weight: 535g
Pages: 352
Collections
About the Author
Terry Eagleton is Professor of Cultural Theory and John Rylands Fellow at the University of Manchester. His numerous works include The Illusions of Postmodernism (1996), Literary Theory: An Introduction (second edition, 1996), The Ideology of the Aesthetic (1990), Scholars and Rebels in Nineteenth Century Ireland (1999), and The Idea of Culture (2000), all published by Blackwell, as are his dramatic writings, St Oscar and Other Plays (1997), and the Eagleton Reader (1997) edited by Stephen Regan. His memoir The Gatekeeper was published in 2002.
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