How do I know thee? : theatrical and narrative cognition in seventeenth-century France / Richard E. Goodkin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goodkin, Richard E., author.

Series:

Rethinking the Early Modern

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

French literature--17th century--History and criticism.

French literature.

Cognition in literature.

Social perception in literature.

Philosophy, French--17th century.

Philosophy, French.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

vii, 315 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2015.

Summary:

The classical period in France presents a particularly lively battleground for the transition between oral-visual culture, on the one hand, and print culture on the other. The former depended on learning from sources of knowledge directly, in their presence, in a manner analogous to theatrical experience. The latter became characterized by the distance and abstraction of reading. How Do I Know Thee? explores the ways in which literature, philosophy, and psychology approach social cognition, or how we come to know others, Richard E. Goddkin describes a central opposition between what he calls "theatrical cognition" and "narrative cognition," drawing both on scholarship on literary genre and mode, and on the work of a number of philosophers and psychologists, in particular Descartes's theory of cognition, Freudian psychoanalysis, mid-twentieth-century behaviorism, and the field of cognitive science. The result is a study that will be of interest not only to students of the classical period but also to those in the corresponding disciplines. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction. The horizons of personality

Wars of cognition in seventeenth-century France

"Clear and distinct" : two aspects of cognition in Descartes

The (dis-)unity of time, place, and cognition

Theatrical and narrative cognition in twentieth-century psychology

Freud between drama and narrative

Modalities of personality in behaviorism, narrative psychology, and dual-process theory

Reading French classicism, cognitively : Corneille, Molière, Lafayette, and La Bruyère

Corneille's novelistic comedies

Molière and the novel

Narrativity and theatricality in Lafayette's La Princesse de Montpensier, Zaïde, and La Princesse de Clèves

La Bruyère : dramatist, narrativist, psychologist

Conclusion: "taking note" of personality.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 303=310) and index.

ISBN:

9780810130852

0810130858

9780810131804

0810131803

9780810130869

0810130866

OCLC:

898158918