Redeeming words : language and the promise of happiness in the stories of Döblin and Sebald / David Kleinberg-Levin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kleinberg-Levin, David Michael, 1939-

Series:

Intersections (Albany, N.Y.)

SUNY series, Intersections : philosophy and critical theory

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Döblin, Alfred, 1878-1957--Criticism and interpretation.

Döblin, Alfred.

Sebald, W. G. (Winfried Georg), 1944-2001--Criticism and interpretation.

Sebald, W. G.

Language and languages in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (386 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2013]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this probing look at Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz and the stories of W. G. Sebald, Redeeming Words offers a philosophical meditation on the power of language in literature. David Kleinberg-Levin draws on the critical theory of Benjamin and Adorno; the idealism and romanticism of Kant, Hegel, Hölderlin, Novalis, and Schelling; and the nineteenth- and twentieth-century thought of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida. He shows how Döblin and Sebald—writers with radically different styles working in different historical moments—have in common a struggle against forces of negativity and an aim to bring about in response a certain redemption of language. Kleinberg-Levin considers the fast-paced, staccato, and hard-cut sentences of Döblin and the ghostly, languorous, and melancholy prose fiction of Sebald to articulate how both writers use language in an attempt to recover and convey this utopian promise of happiness for life in a time of mourning.

Contents:

""Chapter 4: As Time Goes By: Words from the Embers of Remembering""""Chapter 5: Stoicism, Skepticism, and the Unhappy Consciousness: Sebaldâ€?s Phenomenology of Spirit""; ""Â1 Reading Hegel in Sebald""; ""Â2 Stoicism: The View from Above""; ""Â3 Skepticism: The Vertigo of Groundlessness, The Swindle of Permanence""; ""Â4 Unhappy Consciousness: Infinite Grief and the Sustaining of Loss""; ""Chapter 6: Beauty : Symbol of Morality in a Phenomenology of Spirit""; ""Â1 Beauty and the Promise of Happiness""; ""Â2 Beauty and Truth""; ""Â3 Beauty as Allegory""

""Chapter 1: Telling Stories: A Question of Transmissibility""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781438447827

1438447825

OCLC:

865840029