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 42
... never fully ready . That is why criticism is a never- ending process . " In other words , the purpose of literary criticism is to enable us to experience the work of literature with greater richness and depth than might otherwise be ...
... never fully ready . That is why criticism is a never- ending process . " In other words , the purpose of literary criticism is to enable us to experience the work of literature with greater richness and depth than might otherwise be ...
Page 54
... never speak , never address myself to you , and never call upon you . All these traits are negative in form . But this negation masks only the more essential fact that in language everything comes back to affirmation , that that which ...
... never speak , never address myself to you , and never call upon you . All these traits are negative in form . But this negation masks only the more essential fact that in language everything comes back to affirmation , that that which ...
Page 86
... never disappearing , always ambiguous because his being is past , a discrepancy with the present and even with time . Remus is a bit of the hypothetical mythic reality before there was time , of a reality which never was ( when slaves ...
... never disappearing , always ambiguous because his being is past , a discrepancy with the present and even with time . Remus is a bit of the hypothetical mythic reality before there was time , of a reality which never was ( when slaves ...
Contents
The Golden Age of Aphorism | 3 |
Blaise Pascal | 26 |
Deconstruction | 56 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
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