The demonic : literature and experience / Ewan Fernie ; foreword by Jonathan Dollimore.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fernie, Ewan, 1971-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Demonology in literature.

Devil in literature.

Demoniac possession in literature.

Sex in literature.

Desire in literature.

Literature--History and criticism.

Literature.

Physical Description:

xxiii, 312 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2013.

Summary:

Are we either good or bad, and do we really know the difference? Why do we want what we cannot have, and even to be what we're not? Can we desire others without wanting to possess them? Can we to others and not risk possession ourselves? And where, in these cases, do we draw the line?

Ewan Fernie argues that the demonic tradition in literature offers a key to our most agonised and intimate experiences. The Demonic ranges across the breadth of Western culture, engaging with writers as central and various as Luther, Shakespeare, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Melville and Mann.

A powerful foreword by Jonathan Dollimore brings out its implications as an intellectual and stylistic breakthrough into new ways of writing criticism. Fernie unfolds an intense and personal vision, not just of Western modernity, but of identity, morality and sex. As much as it's concerned with the great works, this is a book about life. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part 1 Demonic negativity 1

1 Dark night of the soul 3

2 Luther: man between God and the Devil 34

3 Marlowe's Doctor Faustus 45

4 Demonic Macbeth 50

5 Satan (and demonic sex) 69

6 A justified sinner 81

7 Dostoevsky's demons 87

8 Thomas Mann as Dr Faustus (via Love's Labour's Lost) 115

9 She Devil 142

10 Loving the alien 148

Part 2 Turnabout and dialectic 151

11 Kierkegaard trembling 153

12 Nietzsche: a demon that laughs 160

13 The marriage of heaven and hell 165

14 Demonic dialectic: Boehme, Schelling, Hegel 169

Part 3 Possession 181

15 Introduction 183

A The agony in possessing 189

16 Angelo 191

17 Claggart 201

18 Possessing a child 208

19 Possessing god 209

20 Christ the possessor 213

B The possessed 217

21 Introduction 219

22 Donne 220

23 Poor Tom 223

24 A Freudian interruption 237

25 The devils of Loudon 240

26 Jane Lead 245

27 The Master of Petersburg 253

28 Schreber 264.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [285]-303) and index.

ISBN:

9780415690249

0415690242

9780415690256

0415690250

9780203082300

0203082303

OCLC:

793911006