The savage god : a study of suicide / by A. Alvarez.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alvarez, A. (Alfred), 1929-2019.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Suicide.

Suicide in literature.

Medical Subjects:

Suicide.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xviii, 299 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First American edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Random House, [1972]

Summary:

This book explores suicide as it has never been described before. It is a deep compassionate insight into the realm of self-destruction from a personal, literary, and existential point of view. The author dispels the preconception that suicide is either a terrifying aberration or something to be ignored altogether. He documents and explores historically man's changing attitudes toward suicide: from the various primitive societies, the Greek and Roman cultures, to the development of the suicidal martyrdom of the early Christian church, the later concept of suicide as a mortal sin to be savagely punished, and the counterrevolutionary attitude of the late nineteenth century which shifted the responsibility of suicide from the individual to society. He continues with a discussion of the theories which have been developed about suicide. From there, he explores the minds and emotional states of Dante, Cowper, Donne, Chatterton, and others, explaining the death trend in their works. He sees revealed in literature the voyage of the suicide in past centuries and today. He returns to a personal view of suicide at the close of the book as he chronicles his attempt on his own life. He brings the reader through a journey where one sees the act of suicide as the end of a long experience, an emptiness so isolated and violent--making life into such a paper-thin reality--that it surrenders.-- From publisher's description.

Contents:

Prologue: Sylvia Plath

pt. 2. The background

pt. 3. The closed world of suicide: fallacies

Theories

Feelings

pt. 4. Suicide and literature: Dante and the Middle Ages

John Donne and the Renaissance

William Cowper, Thomas Chatterton and the age of reason

The romantic agony

Tomorrow's zero: the transition to the twentieth centruy

Dada: suicide as an art

The savage God

pt. 5. Letting go.

Notes:

Originally published: London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, ©1971.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-294) and index.

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

Other Format:

Online version: Alvarez, A. (Alfred), 1929- Savage god.

ISBN:

0394474511

9780394474519

OCLC:

308499