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Touching the World : Reference in Autobiography / Paul John Eakin.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [1992]Copyright date: ©1992Edition: Course BookDescription: 1 online resource (268 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691068206
  • 9781400820641
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 809.93592
LOC classification:
  • PS366.A88E
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- INTRODUCTION -- CHAPTER ONE. The Referential Aesthetic of Autobiography -- CHAPTER TWO. Henry James's "Obscure Hurt": Can Autobiography Serve Biography? -- CHAPTER THREE. Self and Culture in Autobiography: Models of Identity and the Limits of Language -- CHAPTER FOUR. Living in History -- CHAPTER FIVE. Autobiography and the Structures of Experience -- Works Cited -- Index
Summary: Paul John Eakin's earlier work Fictions in Autobiography is a key text in autobiography studies. In it he proposed that the self that finds expression in autobiography is in fundamental ways a kind of fictive construct, a fiction articulated in a fiction. In this new book Eakin turns his attention to what he sees as the defining assumption of autobiography: that the story of the self does refer to a world of biographical and historical fact. Here he shows that people write autobiography not in some private realm of the autonomous self but rather in strenuous engagement with the pressures that life in culture entails. In so demonstrating, he offers fresh readings of autobiographies by Roland Barthes, Nathalie Sarraute, William Maxwell, Henry James, Ronald Fraser, Richard Rodriguez, Henry Adams, Patricia Hampl, John Updike, James McConkey, and Lillian Hellman. In the introduction Eakin makes a case for reopening the file on reference in autobiography, and in the first chapter he establishes the complexity of the referential aesthetic of the genre, the intricate interplay of fact and fiction in such texts. In subsequent chapters he explores some of the major contexts of reference in autobiography: the biographical, the social and cultural, the historical, and finally, underlying all the rest, the somatic and temporal dimensions of the lived experience of identity. In his discussion of contemporary theories of the self, Eakin draws especially on cultural anthropology and developmental psychology.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400820641

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- INTRODUCTION -- CHAPTER ONE. The Referential Aesthetic of Autobiography -- CHAPTER TWO. Henry James's "Obscure Hurt": Can Autobiography Serve Biography? -- CHAPTER THREE. Self and Culture in Autobiography: Models of Identity and the Limits of Language -- CHAPTER FOUR. Living in History -- CHAPTER FIVE. Autobiography and the Structures of Experience -- Works Cited -- Index

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http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Paul John Eakin's earlier work Fictions in Autobiography is a key text in autobiography studies. In it he proposed that the self that finds expression in autobiography is in fundamental ways a kind of fictive construct, a fiction articulated in a fiction. In this new book Eakin turns his attention to what he sees as the defining assumption of autobiography: that the story of the self does refer to a world of biographical and historical fact. Here he shows that people write autobiography not in some private realm of the autonomous self but rather in strenuous engagement with the pressures that life in culture entails. In so demonstrating, he offers fresh readings of autobiographies by Roland Barthes, Nathalie Sarraute, William Maxwell, Henry James, Ronald Fraser, Richard Rodriguez, Henry Adams, Patricia Hampl, John Updike, James McConkey, and Lillian Hellman. In the introduction Eakin makes a case for reopening the file on reference in autobiography, and in the first chapter he establishes the complexity of the referential aesthetic of the genre, the intricate interplay of fact and fiction in such texts. In subsequent chapters he explores some of the major contexts of reference in autobiography: the biographical, the social and cultural, the historical, and finally, underlying all the rest, the somatic and temporal dimensions of the lived experience of identity. In his discussion of contemporary theories of the self, Eakin draws especially on cultural anthropology and developmental psychology.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)