The literature of pity / David Punter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Punter, David, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sympathy in literature.

Sympathy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vi, 190 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Pity represents a combination of fear, helplessness and overwhelming agitation. It is a term which suffuses our everyday lives; it is also a dangerous term hovering between approval of sympathy and disapproval of emotional wallowing (as in 'self-pity'). David Punter here engages with a wealth of theoretical ideas to explore the literature of pity, including Freud, Derrida, Levinas and others. He begins with an 'Introduction: Distinguishing Pity', followed by chapters on the Aristotelian framework; Buddhism and pity; the pieta in the Middle Ages and Renaissance; Shakespeare on pity; Milton's pitiless Christianity; pity and charity in the early novel; Blake's views on pity; the Victorian debate, from Austen to Dickens and George Eliot; Brecht and Chekhov on pity and self-pity; 'war, and the pity of war'; Jean Rhys and Stevie Smith; pity, immigration and the colony; and finally three contemporary texts by Michel Faber, Kazuo Ishiguro and Cormac McCarthy.

Contents:

Distinguishing pity

Pity and terror : the Aristotelian framework

Pietà

Shakespeare on pity

The eighteenth century

Blake : "pity would be no more"

Aspects of Victoriana

Chekhov and Brecht : pity and self-pity

"War, and the pity of war" : Wilfred Owen, David Jones, Primo Levi

Reflections on Algernon Blackwood's Gothic

Pity's cold extremities : Jean Rhys and Stevie Smith

Reclaiming the savage night

"Pity the poor immigrant" : pity, diaspora, the colony

Lyric and pity

After thought : under the dome.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 02 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-7486-9198-7

0-7486-9197-9

OCLC:

881416188