Contributors present a revisioning of familiar texts that encourages a fuller understanding of th... more Contributors present a revisioning of familiar texts that encourages a fuller understanding of the gender ideology of American literature and culture. Includes rereadings in feminist terms of plays by Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and Sam Shepard.
There are striking similarities in the lives of James Joyce and Eugene O'Neill, similarities ... more There are striking similarities in the lives of James Joyce and Eugene O'Neill, similarities that can be attributed in part to their commonly shared Irish roots — dominant fathers; passive, religious mothers; Catholic education — and in part to their shared desire to escape those roots and become self-begetting in their person and in their art.
Although critics have cited the influence of J. M. Synge's work on that of Eugene O'Neill... more Although critics have cited the influence of J. M. Synge's work on that of Eugene O'Neill and Djuna Barnes, his early one-act plays also influenced another Provincetown Player, Susan Glaspell. This article discusses the ways that Synge's diction, imagery, rhythms, pauses, and silences, as well as his poetic use of language in his plays In the Shadow of the Glen and Riders to the Sea are echoed in Glaspell's Trifles and The Outside.
Page 1. i TAT 10 REVOLVING IT ALL editedby LINDA BEN-ZVI and ANGELA MOORJANI Page 2. Beckett at 1... more Page 1. i TAT 10 REVOLVING IT ALL editedby LINDA BEN-ZVI and ANGELA MOORJANI Page 2. Beckett at 100 Page 3. This page intentionally left blank Page 4. Beckett at 100 Revolving It All Edited by Linda Ben-Zvi and Angela Moorjani 1 2008 Page 5. ...
In the criticism of literature, since Aristotle, practically no significant work has been done th... more In the criticism of literature, since Aristotle, practically no significant work has been done that does not include, or at least presuppose, a discussion of genres or types or modes, an analysis of the artistic universe into units compact enough to provide a basis for characterizing, differentiating and comparing particular phenomena. Even in the case of broad theoretical attempts to explain the artistic endeavor or the aesthetic experience as such, some basic notion of types is necessary in order to identify, in the first place, what the philosophical or political or psychological argument is meant to account for.
... well-known distrust of the rising film industry and other commercial cultural forms, such as ... more ... well-known distrust of the rising film industry and other commercial cultural forms, such as pulp magazines and popular fiction, Lurie offers a ... This read-ing is framed by Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the novel as a genre necessarily woven out of different, intersecting, and often ...
James Joyce, limited by failing eyesight, often made use of a cadre of young admirers in the proc... more James Joyce, limited by failing eyesight, often made use of a cadre of young admirers in the process of amassing the encyclopedic volume of material that was to become Finnegans Wake. One of "Joyce's runabout men" was Samuel Beckett1 and a specific assignment given him was the reading of Beitrage zu einer Kritik der Sprache (Contributions toward a Critique of Language), the three-volume study of language completed in 1903 by Austrian philosopher Fritz Mauthner.2 Beckett says of the task: "I skimmed through Mauthner for Joyce in 1929 or 30. 1 do not remember what passages I marked as likely fodder for Finnegans Wake. I did not suppose he was concerned with the doctrine. It seemed just another notesnatching operation."3 Such techniques for finding philosophical underpinnings to bolster the massive structure of the book were not unusual. It was Joyce who suggested that Beckett study the works of Bruno and Vico as possible antecedents of the Wake, though he later...
The American humorist E. B. White famously remarked, "Analyzing laughter is like dissecting a fro... more The American humorist E. B. White famously remarked, "Analyzing laughter is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies" (qtd. in Kantor 2008, 8). Henri Bergson, in his preface to Le Rire offered a similar, if extended and more elegant warning: "We shall not aim at imprisoning the comic spirit within a definition. We regard it, above all, as a living thing. However trivial it may be, we shall treat it with the respect due to life." In Bergson's study, "the frog" lives, as he explains, to "throw light for us on the way that human imagination works" (62). In modern theatre, Samuel Beckett takes up this challenge of analyzing laughter. In his novel Watt, the large part of which was written while he was in hiding in Roussillon, France during WWII, his character Arsene describes three types of laughter in definitions that, themselves, invite laughter: The bitter, the hollow and-Haw! Haw!-the mirthless. The bitter laugh laughs at that which is good, it is the ethical laugh. The hollow laugh laughs at that which is not true, it is the intellectual laugh. Not good! Not true! Well, well. But the mirthless laugh is the dianoetic laugh, down the snout-Haw!-so. It is the laugh of laughs, the risus purus, the laugh laughing at the laugh, the beholding, the saluting of the highest joke, in a word the laugh that laughs-silence please-at that which is unhappy (48). 2 The philosopher Simon Critchley uses this quotation as the epigraph for his study On Humour claiming that Beckett's humor-provoking laughter finally brings "elevation and liberation, the lucidity of consolation" (Critchley 111). But since Beckett's people are lucid, they are aware that their laughter and jokes do little to change their plights or elevate and elucidate their conditions. The best that laughter can provide characters in a Beckett story, novel, or play is a way to pass time, militate for the moment against boredom, and provide some relief from the awareness of the human condition, which
My first contact with Beckett was actually initiated by my students in a Beckett seminar at Color... more My first contact with Beckett was actually initiated by my students in a Beckett seminar at Colorado State University, spring semester 1979, and our correspondence continued for the next ten years.
... In Joey's Jewish scenario, Bobby, the intellectual, would be the Talmud scholar, explain... more ... In Joey's Jewish scenario, Bobby, the intellectual, would be the Talmud scholar, explaining to the community what Rabbi Akiva said. ... We read them in the books.What books? Bobby asks, and Joey can only reply: I don't know what books... that's what I'm saying... ...
... By studying materials related to the Hossack murder case, in which a farm woman from Indianol... more ... By studying materials related to the Hossack murder case, in which a farm woman from Indianola, Iowa, was accused of hatcheting her ... And those who have dared to do solike Megan Terry, Karen Malpede, Maria Irene Fornes, Adri-enne Kennedy, Joan Schenkar, Wendy ...
Sociologist Manuel Castells's sweeping 1,445-page, three-volume study, under the general titl... more Sociologist Manuel Castells's sweeping 1,445-page, three-volume study, under the general title The Information Age, details the ways in which the rapid development and proliferation of information technology over the past two decades has created radically new social paradigms that call into question traditional societal structures and individuals’ relations to communal organizations as well as their personal perceptions of self. “Our societies are increasingly structured around the bipolar opposition of the Net and the Self,” Castells writes in his introduction to volume 1. “The Net,” a term covering the ever-expanding networked communication media, he defines as fluid and constantly changing, while the “Self” is in a constant search for some fixity or certainty, now that the primary markers of identity – sexual, religious, ethnic, territorial – are no longer clearly delineated or self-evident. This bipolarity between Net and Self has given rise to a condition Castells describes...
Contributors present a revisioning of familiar texts that encourages a fuller understanding of th... more Contributors present a revisioning of familiar texts that encourages a fuller understanding of the gender ideology of American literature and culture. Includes rereadings in feminist terms of plays by Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and Sam Shepard.
There are striking similarities in the lives of James Joyce and Eugene O'Neill, similarities ... more There are striking similarities in the lives of James Joyce and Eugene O'Neill, similarities that can be attributed in part to their commonly shared Irish roots — dominant fathers; passive, religious mothers; Catholic education — and in part to their shared desire to escape those roots and become self-begetting in their person and in their art.
Although critics have cited the influence of J. M. Synge's work on that of Eugene O'Neill... more Although critics have cited the influence of J. M. Synge's work on that of Eugene O'Neill and Djuna Barnes, his early one-act plays also influenced another Provincetown Player, Susan Glaspell. This article discusses the ways that Synge's diction, imagery, rhythms, pauses, and silences, as well as his poetic use of language in his plays In the Shadow of the Glen and Riders to the Sea are echoed in Glaspell's Trifles and The Outside.
Page 1. i TAT 10 REVOLVING IT ALL editedby LINDA BEN-ZVI and ANGELA MOORJANI Page 2. Beckett at 1... more Page 1. i TAT 10 REVOLVING IT ALL editedby LINDA BEN-ZVI and ANGELA MOORJANI Page 2. Beckett at 100 Page 3. This page intentionally left blank Page 4. Beckett at 100 Revolving It All Edited by Linda Ben-Zvi and Angela Moorjani 1 2008 Page 5. ...
In the criticism of literature, since Aristotle, practically no significant work has been done th... more In the criticism of literature, since Aristotle, practically no significant work has been done that does not include, or at least presuppose, a discussion of genres or types or modes, an analysis of the artistic universe into units compact enough to provide a basis for characterizing, differentiating and comparing particular phenomena. Even in the case of broad theoretical attempts to explain the artistic endeavor or the aesthetic experience as such, some basic notion of types is necessary in order to identify, in the first place, what the philosophical or political or psychological argument is meant to account for.
... well-known distrust of the rising film industry and other commercial cultural forms, such as ... more ... well-known distrust of the rising film industry and other commercial cultural forms, such as pulp magazines and popular fiction, Lurie offers a ... This read-ing is framed by Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the novel as a genre necessarily woven out of different, intersecting, and often ...
James Joyce, limited by failing eyesight, often made use of a cadre of young admirers in the proc... more James Joyce, limited by failing eyesight, often made use of a cadre of young admirers in the process of amassing the encyclopedic volume of material that was to become Finnegans Wake. One of "Joyce's runabout men" was Samuel Beckett1 and a specific assignment given him was the reading of Beitrage zu einer Kritik der Sprache (Contributions toward a Critique of Language), the three-volume study of language completed in 1903 by Austrian philosopher Fritz Mauthner.2 Beckett says of the task: "I skimmed through Mauthner for Joyce in 1929 or 30. 1 do not remember what passages I marked as likely fodder for Finnegans Wake. I did not suppose he was concerned with the doctrine. It seemed just another notesnatching operation."3 Such techniques for finding philosophical underpinnings to bolster the massive structure of the book were not unusual. It was Joyce who suggested that Beckett study the works of Bruno and Vico as possible antecedents of the Wake, though he later...
The American humorist E. B. White famously remarked, "Analyzing laughter is like dissecting a fro... more The American humorist E. B. White famously remarked, "Analyzing laughter is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies" (qtd. in Kantor 2008, 8). Henri Bergson, in his preface to Le Rire offered a similar, if extended and more elegant warning: "We shall not aim at imprisoning the comic spirit within a definition. We regard it, above all, as a living thing. However trivial it may be, we shall treat it with the respect due to life." In Bergson's study, "the frog" lives, as he explains, to "throw light for us on the way that human imagination works" (62). In modern theatre, Samuel Beckett takes up this challenge of analyzing laughter. In his novel Watt, the large part of which was written while he was in hiding in Roussillon, France during WWII, his character Arsene describes three types of laughter in definitions that, themselves, invite laughter: The bitter, the hollow and-Haw! Haw!-the mirthless. The bitter laugh laughs at that which is good, it is the ethical laugh. The hollow laugh laughs at that which is not true, it is the intellectual laugh. Not good! Not true! Well, well. But the mirthless laugh is the dianoetic laugh, down the snout-Haw!-so. It is the laugh of laughs, the risus purus, the laugh laughing at the laugh, the beholding, the saluting of the highest joke, in a word the laugh that laughs-silence please-at that which is unhappy (48). 2 The philosopher Simon Critchley uses this quotation as the epigraph for his study On Humour claiming that Beckett's humor-provoking laughter finally brings "elevation and liberation, the lucidity of consolation" (Critchley 111). But since Beckett's people are lucid, they are aware that their laughter and jokes do little to change their plights or elevate and elucidate their conditions. The best that laughter can provide characters in a Beckett story, novel, or play is a way to pass time, militate for the moment against boredom, and provide some relief from the awareness of the human condition, which
My first contact with Beckett was actually initiated by my students in a Beckett seminar at Color... more My first contact with Beckett was actually initiated by my students in a Beckett seminar at Colorado State University, spring semester 1979, and our correspondence continued for the next ten years.
... In Joey's Jewish scenario, Bobby, the intellectual, would be the Talmud scholar, explain... more ... In Joey's Jewish scenario, Bobby, the intellectual, would be the Talmud scholar, explaining to the community what Rabbi Akiva said. ... We read them in the books.What books? Bobby asks, and Joey can only reply: I don't know what books... that's what I'm saying... ...
... By studying materials related to the Hossack murder case, in which a farm woman from Indianol... more ... By studying materials related to the Hossack murder case, in which a farm woman from Indianola, Iowa, was accused of hatcheting her ... And those who have dared to do solike Megan Terry, Karen Malpede, Maria Irene Fornes, Adri-enne Kennedy, Joan Schenkar, Wendy ...
Sociologist Manuel Castells's sweeping 1,445-page, three-volume study, under the general titl... more Sociologist Manuel Castells's sweeping 1,445-page, three-volume study, under the general title The Information Age, details the ways in which the rapid development and proliferation of information technology over the past two decades has created radically new social paradigms that call into question traditional societal structures and individuals’ relations to communal organizations as well as their personal perceptions of self. “Our societies are increasingly structured around the bipolar opposition of the Net and the Self,” Castells writes in his introduction to volume 1. “The Net,” a term covering the ever-expanding networked communication media, he defines as fluid and constantly changing, while the “Self” is in a constant search for some fixity or certainty, now that the primary markers of identity – sexual, religious, ethnic, territorial – are no longer clearly delineated or self-evident. This bipolarity between Net and Self has given rise to a condition Castells describes...
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