The Puritan and the Cynic: Moralists and Theorists in French and American LettersWhy do Americans, and so often, American writers, profess moral sentiments and yet write so little in the traditionally "moralistic" genres of maxim and fable? What is the relation between "moral" concerns and literary theory? Can any sort of morality survive the supposed nihilism of deconstruction? Jefferson Humphries undertakes a discussion of questions like these through a comparative reading of the ways in which moral issues surface in French and American literature. Humphries takes issue with the "amoral" view of deconstruction espoused by many of its detractors, arguing that the debate between the theory's advocates and opponents comes down to two opposing literary and moral traditions. While the American tradition views morality as a rigid system capable of being enforced by injunctions along the lines of "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not," the French tradition conceives of morality as a function of a relentless and unsentimental pursuit of truth, and finally, an admission that "truth" is not a static thing, but rather an ongoing process of rigorous thought. |
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Page 54
... desire , or of particular instances of desire such as dream , and it seems to act as a formal and specular metaphor of desire even as it enacts it rhetorically . De Man held the term scholar and those who revere it in utmost contempt ...
... desire , or of particular instances of desire such as dream , and it seems to act as a formal and specular metaphor of desire even as it enacts it rhetorically . De Man held the term scholar and those who revere it in utmost contempt ...
Page 80
... desire ) , the fox first sees the grapes as desirable and then , because gratifi- cation is blocked , negates that first perception . Language is a re- sponse to the frustration of desire , of consumption . The fox will never know if ...
... desire ) , the fox first sees the grapes as desirable and then , because gratifi- cation is blocked , negates that first perception . Language is a re- sponse to the frustration of desire , of consumption . The fox will never know if ...
Page 87
... desire . He has , with words , made that object of desire appear so compelling that the fox chooses to pursue it rather than " Miss Meadows and the gals . " The rabbit has even given hints of his deceitfulness , which however only serve ...
... desire . He has , with words , made that object of desire appear so compelling that the fox chooses to pursue it rather than " Miss Meadows and the gals . " The rabbit has even given hints of his deceitfulness , which however only serve ...
Contents
The Golden Age of Aphorism | 3 |
Blaise Pascal | 26 |
Deconstruction | 56 |
Copyright | |
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allegory American aphorism aphoristic appears autre believe Blanchot Brer Bruyère C'est Chamfort chiasmus chunes Cicero classical common commonplace concept Cotton Mather critics death deconstruction desire discourse divine Edited Edwards embrace enact epigram epigrammatic Èsù fable fact fait Fontaine fragment fragmentary Franklin French genre grapes Harris human illusion integrity involuntary memory irony knowledge La Bruyère La Rochefoucauld Lacan language Lentricchia less literary literature Logos Man's masks Mather Maurice Blanchot meaning metaphor moral moralist n'est nature never original paradox Pascal perception pleasure poem poet poetry Poor Richard possible Proust pure puritan qu'il question Quintillian rabbit reader reading reflects René Char repeated repetition represent rhetoric Rochefoucauld Rubin signifying story subject and object temporal temps tension thing thought tout translation trope truth Uncle Remus universal Vauvenargues virtue witchcraft words writer of maxims Young Goodman Brown