Novels and the sociology of the contemporary / Arpad Szakolczai.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Szakolczai, Árpád, author.

Series:

Routledge studies in social and political thought ; 110.

Routledge studies in social and political thought ; 110

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fiction--History and criticism.

Fiction.

Reality in literature.

Life in literature.

Literature and society.

Civilization, Modern, in literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xi, 374 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Routledge, 2016.

Summary:

"This book substantiates two claims. First, the modern world was not simply produced by "objective" factors, rooted in geographical discoveries and scientific inventions, to be traced to economic, technological or political factors, but is the outcome of social, cultural and spiritual processes. Among such factors, beyond the Protestant ethic (Max Weber), the rise of the absolutist state and its disciplinary network (Michel Foucault), or court society (Norbert Elias), a prime role is played by theatre. The modern reality is deeply theatricalized. Second, a special access for studying this theatricalized world is offered by novels. The best classical novels not simply can be interpreted as describing a world "like" the theatre, but they capture and present a world that has become thoroughly transformed into a global theatre. The theatre effectively transformed the world, and classical novels effectively analyze this "theatricalized" reality - much better than the main instruments supposedly destined to study reality, philosophy and sociology. Thus, instead of using the technique of sociology to analyze novels, the book will treat novels as a "royal road" to analyze a theatricalized reality, in order to find our way back to a genuine and meaningful life "-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Preface

Introduction: novels and the problem of reality

The triple origins of the modern novel

The Don Quixote chronotope: paradoxical paradoxes, or the games of Cervantes

The Rabelais chronotope: the mysteries of fairground economics

The English chronotope: the cruel illusionism of realism

Actors, spectators and critics in the sublime theatre of the public arena

Sublime confusion: the aesthetics of intensity as an anti-Platonic revolt

Diderot, the trickster-outsider-critic: the actor as god in an enlightened world

Lessing, the trickster-outsider-critic: the birth of German enlightenment out of the spirit of theatre

The Goethe chronotope: in between panopticon and circus

Johann Wolfgang Goethe: demonic formation and theatrical re-formation

Wilhelm Meister as Goethe's self-overcoming: from theatrical mission to walking

Promethean modernity in Faust: from asserting titanic poiesis to diagnosing alchemic technology

Beneath and beyond romantic enlightenment

Enlightened romantics: from German titanism to French satanism

Charles Dickens: retrieving the reasons of the heart

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky: standing up again after the demonic splits of reason

Conclusion: towards the sacrificial carnival.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Other Format:

Electronic version: Szakolczai, Árpád. Novels and the sociology of the contemporary.

ISBN:

9781138655591

1138655597

OCLC:

928606542