Sarah M. S. Pearsall
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199532995
- eISBN:
- 9780191714443
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199532995.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This concluding chapter briefly surveys the central themes and arguments of the book. It also revises notions of ‘self-fashioning’ and the alleged emergence of the modern self in the 18th century. ...
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This concluding chapter briefly surveys the central themes and arguments of the book. It also revises notions of ‘self-fashioning’ and the alleged emergence of the modern self in the 18th century. ‘Self-fashioning’ worked in tandem with fashioning others, in ways both strategic and internalized. Understanding the nebulous origins of the modern self requires first understanding what had to be stripped away, at least partially, to make room for that self: chief among these attenuated entities was the family. The rise of independent selfhood generated a host of anxieties about social connections of all sorts. Many used letters to remain attached and to alleviate the painful uncertainties they faced. The conclusion also calls for greater attention to the family in this period.Less
This concluding chapter briefly surveys the central themes and arguments of the book. It also revises notions of ‘self-fashioning’ and the alleged emergence of the modern self in the 18th century. ‘Self-fashioning’ worked in tandem with fashioning others, in ways both strategic and internalized. Understanding the nebulous origins of the modern self requires first understanding what had to be stripped away, at least partially, to make room for that self: chief among these attenuated entities was the family. The rise of independent selfhood generated a host of anxieties about social connections of all sorts. Many used letters to remain attached and to alleviate the painful uncertainties they faced. The conclusion also calls for greater attention to the family in this period.
Andrew Hopper
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199575855
- eISBN:
- 9780191744617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199575855.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Military History
Rather than appear as cynical opportunists, many elite side‐changers sought to ‘spin’ their past actions to support a self‐image of constancy, reliability, and untarnished honour. This chapter ...
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Rather than appear as cynical opportunists, many elite side‐changers sought to ‘spin’ their past actions to support a self‐image of constancy, reliability, and untarnished honour. This chapter explores the ways they sought to explain their actions, whether through printing self‐justificatory narratives or by penning their memoirs for posterity. Their self‐fashioning is especially illuminating for contemporary cultural attitudes to side‐changing, both in what they claim and what they leave unsaid. The chapter concludes that those individuals with an aggressive sense of honour and heightened sensitivity to perceived slights were most prone to changing sides. Yet not all side‐changers were scorned. Those able to persuade themselves and a sufficient number of others that they changed sides from conscience might retain their own sense of honour and public reputation, despite the bitter condemnations by those they had deserted.Less
Rather than appear as cynical opportunists, many elite side‐changers sought to ‘spin’ their past actions to support a self‐image of constancy, reliability, and untarnished honour. This chapter explores the ways they sought to explain their actions, whether through printing self‐justificatory narratives or by penning their memoirs for posterity. Their self‐fashioning is especially illuminating for contemporary cultural attitudes to side‐changing, both in what they claim and what they leave unsaid. The chapter concludes that those individuals with an aggressive sense of honour and heightened sensitivity to perceived slights were most prone to changing sides. Yet not all side‐changers were scorned. Those able to persuade themselves and a sufficient number of others that they changed sides from conscience might retain their own sense of honour and public reputation, despite the bitter condemnations by those they had deserted.
Joshua Landy
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195169393
- eISBN:
- 9780199787845
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195169393.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This book outlines and elucidates the philosophy of Marcel Proust, arguing that it is coherent, compelling, and original. At the same time, it explains why Proust chose to embed this philosophy ...
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This book outlines and elucidates the philosophy of Marcel Proust, arguing that it is coherent, compelling, and original. At the same time, it explains why Proust chose to embed this philosophy within a work of fiction, rather than presenting it in treatise form. The reason, it argues, is that the novel form allows Proust to offer implicit examples, both reinforcing and filling in the theory, often in highly subtle ways; to demand, in addition, specific types of careful attention from the reader, turning the engagement with his words into an experience of value in itself; and to place, finally, an ironic distance between himself and his narrator. Thanks to the active stance into which she is thereby forced, the reader stands to garner not only knowledge about various theoretical issues but also training of her intellectual faculties; not only new ways of thinking, but also new ways of living. Thus, surprising as it may sound, the narrator serves Proust's philosophical project not only when he puts forth convincing views and arguments but also when he makes mistakes. Following an introduction that discusses the major features of Proust's philosophical system and the ways in which they animate In Search of Lost Time, the book explores the perspectival nature of knowledge; the necessity of self-deception; the complex process of creating a stable self through narrative and stylization; and the ways in which the novel's style both supports and enacts its theoretical positions (including the ones officially denied by its narrator). By showing what, exactly, can be gained by combining theory with fiction, the book offers a new orientation for the study of Proust's novel and, more generally, of the intersection between literature and philosophy.Less
This book outlines and elucidates the philosophy of Marcel Proust, arguing that it is coherent, compelling, and original. At the same time, it explains why Proust chose to embed this philosophy within a work of fiction, rather than presenting it in treatise form. The reason, it argues, is that the novel form allows Proust to offer implicit examples, both reinforcing and filling in the theory, often in highly subtle ways; to demand, in addition, specific types of careful attention from the reader, turning the engagement with his words into an experience of value in itself; and to place, finally, an ironic distance between himself and his narrator. Thanks to the active stance into which she is thereby forced, the reader stands to garner not only knowledge about various theoretical issues but also training of her intellectual faculties; not only new ways of thinking, but also new ways of living. Thus, surprising as it may sound, the narrator serves Proust's philosophical project not only when he puts forth convincing views and arguments but also when he makes mistakes. Following an introduction that discusses the major features of Proust's philosophical system and the ways in which they animate In Search of Lost Time, the book explores the perspectival nature of knowledge; the necessity of self-deception; the complex process of creating a stable self through narrative and stylization; and the ways in which the novel's style both supports and enacts its theoretical positions (including the ones officially denied by its narrator). By showing what, exactly, can be gained by combining theory with fiction, the book offers a new orientation for the study of Proust's novel and, more generally, of the intersection between literature and philosophy.
Utsa Ray
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691177342
- eISBN:
- 9780691189918
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691177342.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This chapter demonstrates that, while scholars have long focused on the economic origins of the middle class, it is crucial to understand the ways in which it fashioned itself. Although the universe ...
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This chapter demonstrates that, while scholars have long focused on the economic origins of the middle class, it is crucial to understand the ways in which it fashioned itself. Although the universe of the Indian middle class revolved around contesting colonial categories, the chapter shows that the project of self-fashioning of the Indian middle class was not an instance of alternative modernity, nor did the locality of the middle class in colonial India result in producing some sort of indigenism. This middle class borrowed, adapted, and appropriated the pleasures of modernity and tweaked and subverted it to suit their project of self-fashioning. An area in which such cosmopolitan domesticity can be observed was the culinary culture of colonial Bengal, which utilized both vernacular ingredients and British modes of cooking in order to establish a Bengali bourgeois cuisine. This process of indigenization was an aesthetic choice that was imbricated in the upper caste and in the patriarchal agenda of middle-class social reform, and it developed certain social practices, including imagining the act of cooking as a classic feminine practice and the domestic kitchen as a sacred space. It was often this hybrid culture that marked the colonial middle classes.Less
This chapter demonstrates that, while scholars have long focused on the economic origins of the middle class, it is crucial to understand the ways in which it fashioned itself. Although the universe of the Indian middle class revolved around contesting colonial categories, the chapter shows that the project of self-fashioning of the Indian middle class was not an instance of alternative modernity, nor did the locality of the middle class in colonial India result in producing some sort of indigenism. This middle class borrowed, adapted, and appropriated the pleasures of modernity and tweaked and subverted it to suit their project of self-fashioning. An area in which such cosmopolitan domesticity can be observed was the culinary culture of colonial Bengal, which utilized both vernacular ingredients and British modes of cooking in order to establish a Bengali bourgeois cuisine. This process of indigenization was an aesthetic choice that was imbricated in the upper caste and in the patriarchal agenda of middle-class social reform, and it developed certain social practices, including imagining the act of cooking as a classic feminine practice and the domestic kitchen as a sacred space. It was often this hybrid culture that marked the colonial middle classes.
Elizabeth Amann
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226187259
- eISBN:
- 9780226187396
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226187396.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This study explores a series of dandy figures that emerged in France, Spain and Britain during the period of the French Revolution: the muscadins, jeunes gens and incroyables in France, the ...
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This study explores a series of dandy figures that emerged in France, Spain and Britain during the period of the French Revolution: the muscadins, jeunes gens and incroyables in France, the currutacos in Spain and the crops in England. Examining newspaper debates, vaudeville theater, satirical prints, pamphlets and treatises, it traces how these new types responded to the revolutionary moment from which they were born and introduced a fundamental shift in our conception of dandyism. Though often regarded as a disengaged or purely aesthetic figure, the dandy assumed in the 1790s new political roles and meanings as self-fashioning became an ideologically charged act. This study seeks to understand this new form of dandyism in light of the fashions of revolution and revolutions of fashion during this period.Less
This study explores a series of dandy figures that emerged in France, Spain and Britain during the period of the French Revolution: the muscadins, jeunes gens and incroyables in France, the currutacos in Spain and the crops in England. Examining newspaper debates, vaudeville theater, satirical prints, pamphlets and treatises, it traces how these new types responded to the revolutionary moment from which they were born and introduced a fundamental shift in our conception of dandyism. Though often regarded as a disengaged or purely aesthetic figure, the dandy assumed in the 1790s new political roles and meanings as self-fashioning became an ideologically charged act. This study seeks to understand this new form of dandyism in light of the fashions of revolution and revolutions of fashion during this period.
Joshua Landy
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195169393
- eISBN:
- 9780199787845
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195169393.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter discusses Proust's theory of selfhood. It argues that throughout the novel, Proust's protagonist struggles with the problem of finding or constructing a self that is both unique and ...
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This chapter discusses Proust's theory of selfhood. It argues that throughout the novel, Proust's protagonist struggles with the problem of finding or constructing a self that is both unique and enduring, in the face not only of change across time but also of serious division at any given moment, as the various faculties vie for control. Involuntary memory offers a partial solution, by revealing the existence within us of an aspect that is both individuating and stable — namely, the very perspective discussed in Chapter 1. Our perspective, however, is far from exhausting what we think of as our identity, since the numerous temporal selves, which never really disappear altogether from our psychic apparatus, also constitute an important part of who we are. The second suggestion, then, would be to gather these temporal selves together into a narrative. This narrative would require a certain amount of self-deception (ideally lucid): while it would need to be considered definitive in order to be of use, it would in reality, always be provisional, governed by a telos that is in principle unknown to us and therefore continually reimagined. Or, more consequently perhaps, we may dispense with actual narrative and instead simply live our lives as though they were works of literature. Stylizing our physical appearance is one possibility, but a more promising one involves the stylization of our very existence: imagining a future self and proceeding as if every aspect of our lives were directed toward this goal, asking not who we are but who we will have been, living life, in short, in the future perfect.Less
This chapter discusses Proust's theory of selfhood. It argues that throughout the novel, Proust's protagonist struggles with the problem of finding or constructing a self that is both unique and enduring, in the face not only of change across time but also of serious division at any given moment, as the various faculties vie for control. Involuntary memory offers a partial solution, by revealing the existence within us of an aspect that is both individuating and stable — namely, the very perspective discussed in Chapter 1. Our perspective, however, is far from exhausting what we think of as our identity, since the numerous temporal selves, which never really disappear altogether from our psychic apparatus, also constitute an important part of who we are. The second suggestion, then, would be to gather these temporal selves together into a narrative. This narrative would require a certain amount of self-deception (ideally lucid): while it would need to be considered definitive in order to be of use, it would in reality, always be provisional, governed by a telos that is in principle unknown to us and therefore continually reimagined. Or, more consequently perhaps, we may dispense with actual narrative and instead simply live our lives as though they were works of literature. Stylizing our physical appearance is one possibility, but a more promising one involves the stylization of our very existence: imagining a future self and proceeding as if every aspect of our lives were directed toward this goal, asking not who we are but who we will have been, living life, in short, in the future perfect.
Gideon Nisbet
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199662494
- eISBN:
- 9780191761355
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199662494.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book develops a case study of a single ancient Greek verse genre, epigram, in its modern reception from 1805 to 1929. Previously exclusive to an educated elite for whom it served time-honoured ...
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This book develops a case study of a single ancient Greek verse genre, epigram, in its modern reception from 1805 to 1929. Previously exclusive to an educated elite for whom it served time-honoured functions in pedagogy and social exchange, epigram in the nineteenth century became an important site of contestation between mainstream and dissident Hellenisms in the public sphere. Its principal literary repository, the Greek Anthology, was hailed as a unique social document which gave unmediated access to ancient private lives. Picking and choosing from its thousands of poems let translators and literary historians string together any story they wanted about the Greek ‘Genius’, the national and racial spirit which was widely felt to live again through modern British character and achievement; so these stories were potentially about ‘us’, or about who ‘we’ might become in future. One book of the Anthology, however, stuck out as alien: the twelfth, dedicated to the love of men for handsome youths. Subcultural appropriations of the Anthology thus became an important tool in forging an honourable genealogy for male homosexual desire. In turn, these appropriations provoked a backlash by conservative critics, the after-effects of whose rhetoric of containment is still with us in epigram studies today. By tracking this one ‘minor’ genre through a century and more of (mis)representation, Greek Epigram in Reception therefore throws new light on the complex processes by which ancient literary works are received in translation, selection, and exegesis, and on how these processes forever change the texts on which they operate.Less
This book develops a case study of a single ancient Greek verse genre, epigram, in its modern reception from 1805 to 1929. Previously exclusive to an educated elite for whom it served time-honoured functions in pedagogy and social exchange, epigram in the nineteenth century became an important site of contestation between mainstream and dissident Hellenisms in the public sphere. Its principal literary repository, the Greek Anthology, was hailed as a unique social document which gave unmediated access to ancient private lives. Picking and choosing from its thousands of poems let translators and literary historians string together any story they wanted about the Greek ‘Genius’, the national and racial spirit which was widely felt to live again through modern British character and achievement; so these stories were potentially about ‘us’, or about who ‘we’ might become in future. One book of the Anthology, however, stuck out as alien: the twelfth, dedicated to the love of men for handsome youths. Subcultural appropriations of the Anthology thus became an important tool in forging an honourable genealogy for male homosexual desire. In turn, these appropriations provoked a backlash by conservative critics, the after-effects of whose rhetoric of containment is still with us in epigram studies today. By tracking this one ‘minor’ genre through a century and more of (mis)representation, Greek Epigram in Reception therefore throws new light on the complex processes by which ancient literary works are received in translation, selection, and exegesis, and on how these processes forever change the texts on which they operate.
Jessica Barr
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719089701
- eISBN:
- 9781526104243
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719089701.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Anglo-Saxon / Old English Literature
In late medieval mystical writings, the narrative subject self-consciously fashions him- or herself, notably in the writings of Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and Richard Rolle. The authority in ...
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In late medieval mystical writings, the narrative subject self-consciously fashions him- or herself, notably in the writings of Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and Richard Rolle. The authority in which the mystics’ experience is grounded is intimately connected with sanctity: the narrative personae employs individual experience to establish his or her sanctity through the employment of a range of strategies, which are meant to provide a model for the readers and enable affective responses. The three authors fashion their ‘I’ in different ways, from Rolle’s powerful visual images that reflect an open first-person speaker to Margery’s highly particularised persona that invites the audience’s participation to a limited degree only.Less
In late medieval mystical writings, the narrative subject self-consciously fashions him- or herself, notably in the writings of Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and Richard Rolle. The authority in which the mystics’ experience is grounded is intimately connected with sanctity: the narrative personae employs individual experience to establish his or her sanctity through the employment of a range of strategies, which are meant to provide a model for the readers and enable affective responses. The three authors fashion their ‘I’ in different ways, from Rolle’s powerful visual images that reflect an open first-person speaker to Margery’s highly particularised persona that invites the audience’s participation to a limited degree only.
Christian Laes
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199582570
- eISBN:
- 9780191595271
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199582570.003.0011
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
The chapter is a socio-cultural study on Roman pet children, based on a minute analysis of Statius' poetry. It shows how Roman owners of delicia coped with the low social status of these pet ...
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The chapter is a socio-cultural study on Roman pet children, based on a minute analysis of Statius' poetry. It shows how Roman owners of delicia coped with the low social status of these pet children, and how they tried to mask this status. Further, attention is paid to the physical and emotional depiction of these children, as well as to how they served the self-fashioning of their patrons or the poet. Finally, the question is asked whether it is possible to (re)write history from the side of these pet children themselves.Less
The chapter is a socio-cultural study on Roman pet children, based on a minute analysis of Statius' poetry. It shows how Roman owners of delicia coped with the low social status of these pet children, and how they tried to mask this status. Further, attention is paid to the physical and emotional depiction of these children, as well as to how they served the self-fashioning of their patrons or the poet. Finally, the question is asked whether it is possible to (re)write history from the side of these pet children themselves.
Beatrice Groves
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199208982
- eISBN:
- 9780191706158
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199208982.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter focuses on 1 Henry IV, contextualizing it within the religious iconography employed by the eponymous kings of Richard II and Henry V. It argues for the Incarnational nuance of Hal's ...
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This chapter focuses on 1 Henry IV, contextualizing it within the religious iconography employed by the eponymous kings of Richard II and Henry V. It argues for the Incarnational nuance of Hal's self-fashioning as a Cheapside rogue turned royal prince. Hal stages his own redemption in Christian terms: a Lenten period of expectant, self-imposed exile is followed by a reconciliation between father and son through a decisive single combat with a rebellious enemy. The dramatic form of the liturgy, the biblical story, and the mystery plays have been appropriated by Hal to invest his own history with its power.Less
This chapter focuses on 1 Henry IV, contextualizing it within the religious iconography employed by the eponymous kings of Richard II and Henry V. It argues for the Incarnational nuance of Hal's self-fashioning as a Cheapside rogue turned royal prince. Hal stages his own redemption in Christian terms: a Lenten period of expectant, self-imposed exile is followed by a reconciliation between father and son through a decisive single combat with a rebellious enemy. The dramatic form of the liturgy, the biblical story, and the mystery plays have been appropriated by Hal to invest his own history with its power.
Lettycia Terrones
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781496827456
- eISBN:
- 9781496827500
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496827456.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Teresa Covarrubias’s performance at Plaza de la Raza in Lincoln Heights epitomizes the act of refusing that which has been refused to you. Covarrubias invites all the other misfits, all the other ...
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Teresa Covarrubias’s performance at Plaza de la Raza in Lincoln Heights epitomizes the act of refusing that which has been refused to you. Covarrubias invites all the other misfits, all the other “kids like me,” to not capitulate to a gaze that would otherwise define and confine possibilities for Chicanx youth expression. María Luisa O’Neill-Morales (Malú,) the narrator of Celia C. Pérez’s The First Rule of Punk, finds affinity in the figure of Teresa Covarrubias. Malú’s interrogation of her complex bicultural heritage, and her eventual self-fashioning of an integrated identity activates the punk rock ethos to refuse agents of assimilation. This chapter explores how Pérez’s narrative holds up a mirror to all the weirdo outsiders, all the underrepresented youth who are also refused. This chapter argues how Pérez’s project, like Covarrubias’s, models acts of positive refusal that while acknowledging the delimiting systems that seek to shape Malú, also exemplifies through Malú’s agency how Chicanx youth create spaces wide enough to carry all their truths.Less
Teresa Covarrubias’s performance at Plaza de la Raza in Lincoln Heights epitomizes the act of refusing that which has been refused to you. Covarrubias invites all the other misfits, all the other “kids like me,” to not capitulate to a gaze that would otherwise define and confine possibilities for Chicanx youth expression. María Luisa O’Neill-Morales (Malú,) the narrator of Celia C. Pérez’s The First Rule of Punk, finds affinity in the figure of Teresa Covarrubias. Malú’s interrogation of her complex bicultural heritage, and her eventual self-fashioning of an integrated identity activates the punk rock ethos to refuse agents of assimilation. This chapter explores how Pérez’s narrative holds up a mirror to all the weirdo outsiders, all the underrepresented youth who are also refused. This chapter argues how Pérez’s project, like Covarrubias’s, models acts of positive refusal that while acknowledging the delimiting systems that seek to shape Malú, also exemplifies through Malú’s agency how Chicanx youth create spaces wide enough to carry all their truths.
Andrea Most
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814708194
- eISBN:
- 9780814707982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814708194.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
In the voracious quest for authenticity that characterized both the ethnic revival and the radical politics of the later 1960s, many Jewish and American culture makers became increasingly interested ...
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In the voracious quest for authenticity that characterized both the ethnic revival and the radical politics of the later 1960s, many Jewish and American culture makers became increasingly interested in breaking down the boundaries that they believed impeded communication among individuals and propped up corrupt systems of power. Experimental theater, political protests, and popular commercial incarnations of these kinds of performances tested the borders between secular theater and religious ritual, and between performers and spectators, reimagining the theater in its “original” or “authentic” purpose as a site for mystical communion and societal rebirth. The largely anti-theatrical experimental theater practices and radical politics that characterized this move in the popular culture were rooted in the specific rejection or reinterpretation of the Judaic principles of theatrical liberalism. This chapter explores how Judaic ideas about idolatry and self-fashioning informed countercultural debates about art, entertainment, and identity by examining representations of the 1967 march on the Pentagon, the performance theory of Richard Schechner, the film parody Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks, and the essays of Lionel Trilling and Cynthia Ozick.Less
In the voracious quest for authenticity that characterized both the ethnic revival and the radical politics of the later 1960s, many Jewish and American culture makers became increasingly interested in breaking down the boundaries that they believed impeded communication among individuals and propped up corrupt systems of power. Experimental theater, political protests, and popular commercial incarnations of these kinds of performances tested the borders between secular theater and religious ritual, and between performers and spectators, reimagining the theater in its “original” or “authentic” purpose as a site for mystical communion and societal rebirth. The largely anti-theatrical experimental theater practices and radical politics that characterized this move in the popular culture were rooted in the specific rejection or reinterpretation of the Judaic principles of theatrical liberalism. This chapter explores how Judaic ideas about idolatry and self-fashioning informed countercultural debates about art, entertainment, and identity by examining representations of the 1967 march on the Pentagon, the performance theory of Richard Schechner, the film parody Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks, and the essays of Lionel Trilling and Cynthia Ozick.
Felicity Chaplin
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526109538
- eISBN:
- 9781526128263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526109538.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The Parisienne is often described as muse, not only to painters, poets and writers, but also fashion designers, musicians and filmmakers. This chapter argues that films treating the Parisienne type ...
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The Parisienne is often described as muse, not only to painters, poets and writers, but also fashion designers, musicians and filmmakers. This chapter argues that films treating the Parisienne type as muse reveal that the type exists between representation and reality, inhabiting an interstitial space between art and life. Parisienne muses share recognisable iconographical motifs. They are: fashionable; elusive, insofar as they are not able to be possessed by any man or adequately rendered by any artist; highly constructed aesthetic objects, the result of multiple depictions in painting and literature; and self-fashioning, mainly through attention to costume and gesture. While she inspires male artists, the Parisienne muse cannot be reduced to the modern or Romantic conception of the muse as passive object of male desire or artistic construction. Rather, she conforms more to the classical ideal of the muse as active in relation to the artist as passive receptor of inspiration.
This chapter looks at these motifs as they are taken up in three films: Jean Renoir’s Elena et les hommes (1956), Raúl Ruiz’s Klimt (2006), and Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (2010).Less
The Parisienne is often described as muse, not only to painters, poets and writers, but also fashion designers, musicians and filmmakers. This chapter argues that films treating the Parisienne type as muse reveal that the type exists between representation and reality, inhabiting an interstitial space between art and life. Parisienne muses share recognisable iconographical motifs. They are: fashionable; elusive, insofar as they are not able to be possessed by any man or adequately rendered by any artist; highly constructed aesthetic objects, the result of multiple depictions in painting and literature; and self-fashioning, mainly through attention to costume and gesture. While she inspires male artists, the Parisienne muse cannot be reduced to the modern or Romantic conception of the muse as passive object of male desire or artistic construction. Rather, she conforms more to the classical ideal of the muse as active in relation to the artist as passive receptor of inspiration.
This chapter looks at these motifs as they are taken up in three films: Jean Renoir’s Elena et les hommes (1956), Raúl Ruiz’s Klimt (2006), and Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (2010).
Nigel Leask
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199572618
- eISBN:
- 9780191722974
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572618.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, 18th-century Literature
This book is a reassessment of the writings of Robert Burns (1759–96), arguably the most original poet writing in Great Britain between Pope and Blake, and creator of the first modern vernacular ...
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This book is a reassessment of the writings of Robert Burns (1759–96), arguably the most original poet writing in Great Britain between Pope and Blake, and creator of the first modern vernacular style in British poetry. Although still celebrated as Scotland's national poet, Burns has long been marginalised in English literary studies worldwide, due to a mistaken view that his poetry is linguistically incomprehensible and of interest to Scottish readers only. This book challenges this view by interpreting Burns's poetry as an innovative and critical engagement with the experience of rural modernity, namely to the revolutionary transformation of Scottish agriculture and society in the decades between 1760 and 1800, thereby resituating it within the mainstream of the Scottish and European enlightenments. Detailed study of the literary, social, and historical contexts of Burns's poetry explodes the myth of the ‘Heaven-taught ploughman’, revealing his poetic artfulness and critical acumen as a social observer, as well as his significance as a Romantic precursor. The book discusses Burns's radical decision to write ‘Scots pastoral’ (rather than English georgic) poetry in the tradition of Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson, focusing on themes of Scottish and British identity, agricultural improvement, poetic self-fashioning, language, politics, religion, patronage, poverty, antiquarianism, and the animal world. The book offers interpretations of all Burns's major poems and some of the songs, the first to do so since Thomas Crawford's landmark study of 1960. It concludes with a new assessment of his importance for British Romanticism and to a ‘Four Nations’ understanding of Scottish literature and culture.Less
This book is a reassessment of the writings of Robert Burns (1759–96), arguably the most original poet writing in Great Britain between Pope and Blake, and creator of the first modern vernacular style in British poetry. Although still celebrated as Scotland's national poet, Burns has long been marginalised in English literary studies worldwide, due to a mistaken view that his poetry is linguistically incomprehensible and of interest to Scottish readers only. This book challenges this view by interpreting Burns's poetry as an innovative and critical engagement with the experience of rural modernity, namely to the revolutionary transformation of Scottish agriculture and society in the decades between 1760 and 1800, thereby resituating it within the mainstream of the Scottish and European enlightenments. Detailed study of the literary, social, and historical contexts of Burns's poetry explodes the myth of the ‘Heaven-taught ploughman’, revealing his poetic artfulness and critical acumen as a social observer, as well as his significance as a Romantic precursor. The book discusses Burns's radical decision to write ‘Scots pastoral’ (rather than English georgic) poetry in the tradition of Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson, focusing on themes of Scottish and British identity, agricultural improvement, poetic self-fashioning, language, politics, religion, patronage, poverty, antiquarianism, and the animal world. The book offers interpretations of all Burns's major poems and some of the songs, the first to do so since Thomas Crawford's landmark study of 1960. It concludes with a new assessment of his importance for British Romanticism and to a ‘Four Nations’ understanding of Scottish literature and culture.
Jan Golinski
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226351360
- eISBN:
- 9780226368849
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226368849.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This book is a biographical study of the English chemist Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829). It considers Davy’s career as a process of experimental self-fashioning, in which his adaptation to the ...
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This book is a biographical study of the English chemist Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829). It considers Davy’s career as a process of experimental self-fashioning, in which his adaptation to the prevailing social circumstances was accompanied by literary and scientific inquiry into his own subjectivity. Davy’s early life led from experiments on breathing gases (including nitrous oxide) to fame as a public scientific lecturer at the Royal Institution in London. He gained renown as the discoverer of several chemical elements, applied his knowledge to such practical problems as the design of a safety lamp for miners, and rose to prominence in the London scientific and social world. As he made his way in Regency society, Davy molded and adopted a series of personae or public characters. Six of these personae are discussed in the book, each one forming the focus of one chapter. Readers will follow Davy’s course from his youthful enthusiasm for physiological experimentation to his late-life manifestation as a melancholic traveler on the European continent. Along the way, they will gain an appreciation for the creativity Davy invested in his self-fashioning as a man of science, and the obstacles he overcame, in a period when the path to a scientific career was not as well-trodden as it is today.Less
This book is a biographical study of the English chemist Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829). It considers Davy’s career as a process of experimental self-fashioning, in which his adaptation to the prevailing social circumstances was accompanied by literary and scientific inquiry into his own subjectivity. Davy’s early life led from experiments on breathing gases (including nitrous oxide) to fame as a public scientific lecturer at the Royal Institution in London. He gained renown as the discoverer of several chemical elements, applied his knowledge to such practical problems as the design of a safety lamp for miners, and rose to prominence in the London scientific and social world. As he made his way in Regency society, Davy molded and adopted a series of personae or public characters. Six of these personae are discussed in the book, each one forming the focus of one chapter. Readers will follow Davy’s course from his youthful enthusiasm for physiological experimentation to his late-life manifestation as a melancholic traveler on the European continent. Along the way, they will gain an appreciation for the creativity Davy invested in his self-fashioning as a man of science, and the obstacles he overcame, in a period when the path to a scientific career was not as well-trodden as it is today.
Gideon Nisbet
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199662494
- eISBN:
- 9780191761355
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199662494.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter analyzes John Addington Symonds’s treatment of epigram in his important literary history, Studies of the Greek Poets (1873). Reflecting his training by Jowett, its essays broke new ...
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This chapter analyzes John Addington Symonds’s treatment of epigram in his important literary history, Studies of the Greek Poets (1873). Reflecting his training by Jowett, its essays broke new ground in literary criticism and reception study, but also subtly queered ancient Greek life. ‘The Anthology’ introduced epigram to a readership fascinated by ancient private lives, and promised them unparalleled access to a world of experiences and emotions just like their own; but the star of Symonds’s new epigrammatic canon was Meleager, recuperated as a sinless Uranian lover of boys as well as girls. The lusty homosexual poet Strato, though hedged about with necessary vagueness, was rated highly; the heterosexual poets were uniformly dismissed as decadent and disease-ridden. Through heavy use of subtext and figurative rhetoric, Symonds audaciously positioned epigram as the point of entry to a healthy homosexual identity which might be recuperated in the here and nowLess
This chapter analyzes John Addington Symonds’s treatment of epigram in his important literary history, Studies of the Greek Poets (1873). Reflecting his training by Jowett, its essays broke new ground in literary criticism and reception study, but also subtly queered ancient Greek life. ‘The Anthology’ introduced epigram to a readership fascinated by ancient private lives, and promised them unparalleled access to a world of experiences and emotions just like their own; but the star of Symonds’s new epigrammatic canon was Meleager, recuperated as a sinless Uranian lover of boys as well as girls. The lusty homosexual poet Strato, though hedged about with necessary vagueness, was rated highly; the heterosexual poets were uniformly dismissed as decadent and disease-ridden. Through heavy use of subtext and figurative rhetoric, Symonds audaciously positioned epigram as the point of entry to a healthy homosexual identity which might be recuperated in the here and now
Felicity Chaplin
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526109538
- eISBN:
- 9781526128263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526109538.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
In cinema, theParisienne type is often overdetermined by the star incarnating the role, pointing to more extra-cinematic considerations in the construction of la Parisienne in cinema. Certain actors ...
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In cinema, theParisienne type is often overdetermined by the star incarnating the role, pointing to more extra-cinematic considerations in the construction of la Parisienne in cinema. Certain actors possess a Parisienne iconographical profile which develops out of intra-, inter-, and extra-cinematic considerations. In any Parisienne film, there are three possible ways la Parisienne can appear on screen: first, played by an actor who is not a star; second, played by an actor who is a star but who does not possess a Parisienne iconographical profile; and lastly, played by an actor who is a star and who also possesses a Parisienne iconographical profile. The self-fashioning aspect of Parisienne stars was in part facilitated by the absence of a rigorous star system in France during the 1950s and 1960s, which allowed French female stars in particular to take a more active role in the development of their personae. Certain stars in particular have contributed to the evolution of the type, including Brigitte Bardot’s coquettish ingénue, Jeanne Moreau’s cerebral and sensual mature woman, Anna Karina’s gamine and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s bourgeois bohemian.Less
In cinema, theParisienne type is often overdetermined by the star incarnating the role, pointing to more extra-cinematic considerations in the construction of la Parisienne in cinema. Certain actors possess a Parisienne iconographical profile which develops out of intra-, inter-, and extra-cinematic considerations. In any Parisienne film, there are three possible ways la Parisienne can appear on screen: first, played by an actor who is not a star; second, played by an actor who is a star but who does not possess a Parisienne iconographical profile; and lastly, played by an actor who is a star and who also possesses a Parisienne iconographical profile. The self-fashioning aspect of Parisienne stars was in part facilitated by the absence of a rigorous star system in France during the 1950s and 1960s, which allowed French female stars in particular to take a more active role in the development of their personae. Certain stars in particular have contributed to the evolution of the type, including Brigitte Bardot’s coquettish ingénue, Jeanne Moreau’s cerebral and sensual mature woman, Anna Karina’s gamine and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s bourgeois bohemian.
Joshua Landy
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195169393
- eISBN:
- 9780199787845
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195169393.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter examines the connections between Proust's philosophy, and his and his narrator's literary style. On the one hand, a set of stylistic features correspond neatly to the theory of self ...
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This chapter examines the connections between Proust's philosophy, and his and his narrator's literary style. On the one hand, a set of stylistic features correspond neatly to the theory of self described in Chapter 3: the inconsistencies of the novel's chronology mirror the imperfections of memory; the shifts in tone translate the self's constant fluctuations; the multiple narratorial voices reproduce the disjointed nature of consciousness; and the syntax of the famously convoluted and multilayered sentences — which often seem to grow from the middle, constantly allowing for revision and reconsideration — imitates the process by which we attempt to shape the total self. On the other hand, and more importantly, Proust's style does something else: by encouraging us to hold a great deal of information in our head at once, to retrace our steps, and to doubt what we simultaneously believe, it offers the opportunity for a kind of training that may ultimately allow us to construct our own total selves, transforming our disorderly lives into works of art.Less
This chapter examines the connections between Proust's philosophy, and his and his narrator's literary style. On the one hand, a set of stylistic features correspond neatly to the theory of self described in Chapter 3: the inconsistencies of the novel's chronology mirror the imperfections of memory; the shifts in tone translate the self's constant fluctuations; the multiple narratorial voices reproduce the disjointed nature of consciousness; and the syntax of the famously convoluted and multilayered sentences — which often seem to grow from the middle, constantly allowing for revision and reconsideration — imitates the process by which we attempt to shape the total self. On the other hand, and more importantly, Proust's style does something else: by encouraging us to hold a great deal of information in our head at once, to retrace our steps, and to doubt what we simultaneously believe, it offers the opportunity for a kind of training that may ultimately allow us to construct our own total selves, transforming our disorderly lives into works of art.
Cathy Shrank
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199268887
- eISBN:
- 9780191708473
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199268887.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter explores the influence of Italian learning and culture on William Thomas, author of the first English history of Italy and first English-Italian grammar, and an early enthusiast for ...
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This chapter explores the influence of Italian learning and culture on William Thomas, author of the first English history of Italy and first English-Italian grammar, and an early enthusiast for Machiavelli, whose ideas he disseminated in manuscript to Edward VI. The chapter examines Thomas's portrayal in his topographical and historical writings of the affinities between England and Italy, and his use of Italy as both an inspiration and a foil. It traces the impact of a self-conscious movement to reform and promote the Italian vernacular on Thomas's championing of the English language. It also looks at Thomas's Protestantism, his adaptation of Machiavellian thought to English statecraft, the influence of Italian printed books on the presentation of Thomas's works (published by Thomas Berthelet), and Thomas's self-fashioning through his writing.Less
This chapter explores the influence of Italian learning and culture on William Thomas, author of the first English history of Italy and first English-Italian grammar, and an early enthusiast for Machiavelli, whose ideas he disseminated in manuscript to Edward VI. The chapter examines Thomas's portrayal in his topographical and historical writings of the affinities between England and Italy, and his use of Italy as both an inspiration and a foil. It traces the impact of a self-conscious movement to reform and promote the Italian vernacular on Thomas's championing of the English language. It also looks at Thomas's Protestantism, his adaptation of Machiavellian thought to English statecraft, the influence of Italian printed books on the presentation of Thomas's works (published by Thomas Berthelet), and Thomas's self-fashioning through his writing.
Warren Boutcher
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198739661
- eISBN:
- 9780191831126
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198739661.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The core topic of 2.6 is two modern reader-writers of Donald Frame’s American translation of the Essais (Gore Vidal and David Denby). We consider a range of related intellectual contexts for Frame’s ...
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The core topic of 2.6 is two modern reader-writers of Donald Frame’s American translation of the Essais (Gore Vidal and David Denby). We consider a range of related intellectual contexts for Frame’s work, a product of the culture of liberal education and of American liberal individualism: modern, pedagogical versions of ‘human philosophy’; the educational goals of elite institutions such as the École Normale Supérieure and Columbia University; the legacy of Pierre Villey’s work in twentieth-century Montaigne studies. We see how twentieth-century humanists in America and Europe called up the real person ‘Montaigne’ from behind his text and made him explain that text’s value to idealist programmes of general literary education. The chapter includes discussions of figures in the German idealist tradition such as Auerbach,and Burckhardt, as well as the critic of Renaissance ‘self-fashioning’, Stephen Greenblatt, and the British critic Terence Cave.Less
The core topic of 2.6 is two modern reader-writers of Donald Frame’s American translation of the Essais (Gore Vidal and David Denby). We consider a range of related intellectual contexts for Frame’s work, a product of the culture of liberal education and of American liberal individualism: modern, pedagogical versions of ‘human philosophy’; the educational goals of elite institutions such as the École Normale Supérieure and Columbia University; the legacy of Pierre Villey’s work in twentieth-century Montaigne studies. We see how twentieth-century humanists in America and Europe called up the real person ‘Montaigne’ from behind his text and made him explain that text’s value to idealist programmes of general literary education. The chapter includes discussions of figures in the German idealist tradition such as Auerbach,and Burckhardt, as well as the critic of Renaissance ‘self-fashioning’, Stephen Greenblatt, and the British critic Terence Cave.
