The Entrapments of Form : Cruelty and Modern Literature /
Toal, Catherine
The Entrapments of Form : Cruelty and Modern Literature / Catherine Toal. - 1 online resource (184 p.)
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: The "Strange and Familiar Word" -- Chapter One. The Forms of the Perverse -- Chapter Two. "Some Things Which Could Never Have Happened" -- Chapter Three. Murder and "Point of View" -- Chapter Four. The Marquis de Sade in the Twentieth Century -- Chapter Five. American Cruelty -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index
restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec
Arguing that cruelty acquires a new meaning in modernity, The Entrapments of Form follows its evolution through exchanges between French and American literature over the contradictions of Enlightenment (slavery, genocide, libertine aristocratic privilege). Catherine Toal traces Edgar Allan Poe's influence on the Sadean legacy, Melville's fictional dramatization of Tocqueville, and Henry James's response to the aesthetic of his French contemporaries, including Flaubert. The result is not simply a work that provides close readings of key literary texts of the nineteenth century-Benito Cereno, The Turn of the Screw, Les Chants de Maldoror-but one that shows how in this era cruelty develops a specific narrative structure, one that is confirmed by the manner of its negation in twentieth-century philosophy. The final chapters address this shift: the postwar French reception of Sade and the relationship between American cultural theory and the rhetoric of the so-called war on terror.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
In English.
9780823269358 9780823269372
10.1515/9780823269372 doi
American literature--History and criticism--19th century.
American literature--History and criticism.--19th century
Cruelty in literature.
French literature--History and criticism--19th century.
French literature--History and criticism.--19th century
LITERARY CRITICISM / General.
Modernism (Literature)--France.
Modernism (Literature)--United States.
Modernism (Literature)--France.
Modernism (Literature)--United States.
LITERARY CRITICISMÂ / Modern / 19th Century .
American Literature. Contemporary Philosophy. Critical Theory. Cruelty. French Literature. Psychoanalysis.
PQ295.C7T63 2016
840.9353
The Entrapments of Form : Cruelty and Modern Literature / Catherine Toal. - 1 online resource (184 p.)
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: The "Strange and Familiar Word" -- Chapter One. The Forms of the Perverse -- Chapter Two. "Some Things Which Could Never Have Happened" -- Chapter Three. Murder and "Point of View" -- Chapter Four. The Marquis de Sade in the Twentieth Century -- Chapter Five. American Cruelty -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index
restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec
Arguing that cruelty acquires a new meaning in modernity, The Entrapments of Form follows its evolution through exchanges between French and American literature over the contradictions of Enlightenment (slavery, genocide, libertine aristocratic privilege). Catherine Toal traces Edgar Allan Poe's influence on the Sadean legacy, Melville's fictional dramatization of Tocqueville, and Henry James's response to the aesthetic of his French contemporaries, including Flaubert. The result is not simply a work that provides close readings of key literary texts of the nineteenth century-Benito Cereno, The Turn of the Screw, Les Chants de Maldoror-but one that shows how in this era cruelty develops a specific narrative structure, one that is confirmed by the manner of its negation in twentieth-century philosophy. The final chapters address this shift: the postwar French reception of Sade and the relationship between American cultural theory and the rhetoric of the so-called war on terror.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
In English.
9780823269358 9780823269372
10.1515/9780823269372 doi
American literature--History and criticism--19th century.
American literature--History and criticism.--19th century
Cruelty in literature.
French literature--History and criticism--19th century.
French literature--History and criticism.--19th century
LITERARY CRITICISM / General.
Modernism (Literature)--France.
Modernism (Literature)--United States.
Modernism (Literature)--France.
Modernism (Literature)--United States.
LITERARY CRITICISMÂ / Modern / 19th Century .
American Literature. Contemporary Philosophy. Critical Theory. Cruelty. French Literature. Psychoanalysis.
PQ295.C7T63 2016
840.9353