The made-up self : impersonation in the personal essay / Carl H. Klaus.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Klaus, Carl H.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Essays--Authorship.

Essays.

Self in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (170 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, c2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this first book-length study of the personal essay, Carl Klaus unpacks the writer's made-up self and the manifold ways in which a wide range of essayists and essay have brought it to life. By reconceiving the most fundamental aspect of the personal essay--the I of the essayist--Klaus demonstrates that this seemingly uncontrived form of writing is inherently problematic, not wilfully devious but bordering upon the world of fiction. He develops this key idea by explaining how structure, style, and voice determine the nature of a persona and our perception of it in the works of such essayist

Contents:

The "person" in a personal essay

Evocations of consciousness

Montaigne on "Montaigne": toward a poetics of self

The mind and the mind's idiosyncrasy: ideas of consciousness in the personal essay

Discontinuous: form of consciousness

Evocations of personality

Voices on voice: the singular "I" and the chameleon "I"

Elia: pseudonymous self extraordinaire

Never to be yourself and yet always: Virginia Woolf on the essayist's problem

Personae and culture

Difference and "I": cultural consciousness in the personal essay

Orwell's "A hanging": politics and the first-person singular/plural

Personae and personal experience

Illness and "I": malady in the personal essay

Days into essays: a self for all seasons.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-58729-946-1

OCLC:

663881327