Hot Property: The Stakes and Claims of Literary OriginalityBut is it original? The question, on which so much of writing stakes its claim to greatness, may be more interesting than the answer. In this provocative book, Francoise Meltzer takes a subtle and incisive look at the anxiety of origins at the heart of the literary enterprise. Using four case studies, Meltzer reveals the shaky status of originality as a founding principle of the critical establishment. Freud, inventor of "dream work," turns a blind eye upon the dreams that were the starting point of his predecessor Descartes's famous methode, the one man's obsession with originality mirroring the other's fear of plagiarism. The Holocaust poet Paul Celan, whose sense of identity and place resided in his work, is devastated by a charge of plagiarism. Colette's husband Willy outdoes himself, and his "lazy" wife as well, with his enactment of literary seriousness. Walter Benjamin's early interpreters, notably Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno, insidiously undermine the originality of his project . In each of these cases, Meltzer shows how a threat to a writer's status as creator betrays the larger fraud of the originality myth itself. Fascinating for its insights into the ways originality is both at risk and at work in Western literary culture, Hot Property will engage all those who have an interest in questions of authorship, textual soveriegnty, and the legitimacy of the critical establishment. |
From inside the book
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... Dreaming On / 9 2 Paul Celan and the Death of the Book / 45 3 Disappropriating Colette / 82 4 Walter Benjamin and the Right to Acedia / 128 Conclusion / 157 Index / 165 1 I WANT ABOVE ALL to thank my graduate students CONTENTS.
... Dreaming On / 9 2 Paul Celan and the Death of the Book / 45 3 Disappropriating Colette / 82 4 Walter Benjamin and the Right to Acedia / 128 Conclusion / 157 Index / 165 1 I WANT ABOVE ALL to thank my graduate students CONTENTS.
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Contents
Dreaming On | 9 |
Paul Celan and the Death of the Book | 45 |
Disappropriating Colette | 82 |
Walter Benjamin and the Right to Acedia | 128 |
Conclusion | 157 |
Other editions - View all
Hot Property: The Stakes and Claims of Literary Originality Françoise Meltzer No preview available - 1997 |
Hot Property: The Stakes and Claims of Literary Originality Françoise Meltzer No preview available - 1994 |
Common terms and phrases
accused acedia Adorno already Arendt argues Ausonius authorship Baillet becomes belle époque Benja black milk called canon censorship century Certeau cited claims Claire Goll Claudine à l'école Coleridge Colette Colette's conscious context culture Demetz Descartes Descartes's dreams deterritorialization discovery displacement Dormann essay ethic example exile famous feminine feminized fin de siècle flâneur France French Freud gendered genius German Goll hand Hannah Arendt Heidegger Heidegger's Holocaust idea indolence insistence Jewish labor language laziness letters literary criticism melon metaphor metaphysical minority discourse modern nègres never notes notion novel obsession Oeuvres et lettres originality Paris Paul Celan person philosophy plagiarism poem poet poetry political postcards preface problem produce psychoanalysis question Rousseau Sarde says sense sloth Stendhal textual thought three dreams tion Todtnauberg trans translation unconscious vagabond Walter Benjamin Willy Willy's Wohlfarth woman women words writing York