Living well with pessimism in nineteenth-century France 1st ed.

Author

• Acquisto, Joseph

Additional Author(s)

-

Publisher

Cham, Switzerland : Springer International Publishing, 2021

Language

English

ISBN

9783030610142

Series

Palgrave studies in nineteenth-century writing and culture

Subject(s)

• FRENCH LITERATURE
• PESSIMISM
• PESSIMISM IN LITERATURE

Notes

. .

Abstract

This book traces the emergence of modern pessimism in nineteenth-century France and examines its aesthetic, epistemological, ethical, and political implications. It explores how, since pessimism as a worldview is not empirically verifiable, writers on pessimism shift the discussion to verisimilitude, opening up rich territory for cross-fertilization between philosophy and literature. The book traces debates on pessimism in the nineteenth century among French nonfiction writers who either lauded its promotion of compassion or condemned it for being a sick and unliveable attempt at renunciation. It then examines the way novelists and poets take up and transform these questions by portraying characters in lived situations that serve as testing grounds for the merits or limitations of pessimism. The debate on pessimism that emerged in the nineteenth century is still very much with us, and this book offers an interhistorical argument for embracing pessimism as a way of living well in the world, aesthetically, ethically, and politically.

Physical Dimension

Number of Page(s)

1 online resource (vii, 304 p.)

Dimension

-

Other Desc.

ill.

Summary / Review / Table of Content

Intro --
Contents --
Chapter 1: Introduction --
Works Cited --
Chapter 2: Schopenhauer: Resignation, Compassion, and Narrative --
Works Cited --
Chapter 3: Debates on Pessimism in Late Nineteenth-Century France --
Works Cited --
Chapter 4: Pessimism and the Novel: Fiction and the "As-If" --
Works Cited --
Chapter 5: Pessimism and the Poetic Imagination --
Works Cited --
Chapter 6: Conclusion: Living Well with Pessimism, Then and Now --
Work Cited --
Index

Exemplar(s)

#	Accession No.	Call Number	Location	Status
1.	00775/21	840.9007 Acq L	Online !	Available