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Originally published in 1974. This book concerns the archetypal quality of Wordsworth's The Prelude, specifically the ways in which it develops and defines concepts of language, time, and narrative that influenced writers who came after Wordsworth. Frank D. McConnell sees the philosopher and theologian St. Augustine as the most suggestive analogue for the Wordsworthian quest for lost time and for the redemptive power of memory. McConnell maps similarities and dissimilarities between Wordsworth's Prelude and Augustine's Confessions. Each chapter of the book centers on an aspect of Wordsworth's confessional procedure in writing the poem. Chapter 1 ascribes peculiarities in the mode of address to The Prelude's definitive auditor, Coleridge, as a felt presence that shapes the overall form of the poem. Chapter 2 discusses the confessional—and Wordsworthian—view of the human career, contrasting the holistic and organic ideal of man's development with a more ancient and allegorical, or daemonic, view against which the confessional vision struggles. Chapter 3 carries the argument to the more fundamental level of the senses of sight and hearing. And chapter 4 deals with language itself, the irreducible counters of Wordsworth's vision and the highly specialized confessional language of "Edenic words." The general direction of the author's reading is a narrowing of focus from the most general to the most specific features of the confessional act.
Far from being a unique, defining property of the confessional poets, confessionalism is a central trope of American literature. This book examines confessional writing not as a private, apolitical art, but rather one that demonstrates an engagement with the politics of literary influence, of gender relations, and of American culture more broadly.
This masterful synthesis of criticism and biography surveys all of Hermann Hesse's major works and many of his minor ones in relation to the intricate psychological design of his entire life history. Eugene Stelzig examines what it means to be an "autobiographical writer" by considering Hesse's fictions of the self as an exemplary instance of the relationship between life and art and between biography and autobiography. In a graceful and inviting style, he frees this major confessional writer from the confines of German culture and the status of "cult figure" of the 1960s, and situates him in the tradition of world literature and in a variety of literary, psychological, philosophical, and religious contexts. Three introductory chapters on autobiography and Hesse set the stage for a chronological study. Then follows a penetrating analysis of the balance between biographical fact and confessional fantasy in Hesse's long career, from the failed autobiography of his first literary success, Beneath the Wheel, through the protracted midlife crisis of the grotesque Steppenwolf period, to the visionary autobiography of his magisterial fictional finale, The Glass Bead Game. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Examining novels, critical editions, gift books, translations, and illustrated books, as well as the communities who made them, Dreaming in Books tells a wide-ranging story of the book's identity at the turn of the nineteenth century. In so doing, it shows how many of the most pressing modern communicative concerns are not unique to the digital age but emerged with a particular sense of urgency during the bookish upheavals of the romantic era. In revisiting the book's rise through the prism of romantic literature, Piper aims to revise our assumptions about romanticism, the medium of the printed book, and, ultimately, the future of the book in our so-called digital age."--Pub. desc.
Mirta DeSalvo and her husband, Alberto, refugees of the Dirty War of Argentina, owe their lives to wealthy American, Julia Parks, who rescued them from the horrors of the junta and offered a new life in Two Rock, California. Julia, confronted with a late-in-life pregnancy, asks the DeSalvos to adopt the baby with the added condition that they not return to Argentina until baby Francesca is grown. Though aware of the extraordinary sacrifice the promise will require, the DeSalvos have no honorable choice but to accept. The search for their own granddaughter will have to wait, as will Mirta's burning desire to bring to justice the military officer who destroyed her family. A generational story that skillfully illuminates the resilient lives of characters touched by loss and betrayal, loved ones stolen in the night, and the search for a birth mother hiding in plain sight, The Confessional is a compelling rendering of how war and love thousand of miles apart create trauma that ripples through two generations and emerges as love, understanding and forgiveness.
In Troubling Confessions, Peter Brooks juxtaposes law and literature to explore the kinds of truth we associate with confessions, and why we both rely on them and regard them with suspicion. For centuries the law has considered confession to be "the queen of proofs," but it has also seen a need to regulate confessions and the circumstances under which they are made, as evidenced in the continuing debate over the Miranda decision. Western culture has made confessional speech a prime measure of authenticity, seeing it as an expression of selfhood that bears witness to personal truth. Yet the urge to confess may be motivated by inextricable layers of shame, guilt, self-loathing, and the desire to propitiate figures of authority. Literature has often understood the problematic nature of confession better than the law, as Brooks demonstrates in perceptive readings of legal cases set against works by Roussean, Dostoevsky, Joyce, and Camus, among others
Male Confessions examines how men open their intimate lives and thoughts to the public through confessional writing. This book examines writings—by St. Augustine, a Jewish ghetto policeman, an imprisoned Nazi perpetrator, and a gay American theologian—that reflect sincere attempts at introspective and retrospective self-investigation, often triggered by some wounding or rupture and followed by a transformative experience. Krondorfer takes seriously the vulnerability exposed in male self-disclosure while offering a critique of the religious and gendered rhetoric employed in such discourse. The religious imagination, he argues, allows men to talk about their intimate, flawed, and sinful selves without having to condemn themselves or to fear self-erasure. Herein lies the greatest promise of these confessions: by baring their souls to judgment, these writers may also transcend their self-imprisonment.
Literature has often understood the problematic nature of confession better than the law, as Brooks demonstrates in perceptive readings of legal cases set against works by Roussean, Dostoevsky, Joyce, and Camus, among others."--BOOK JACKET.
“Touching.” —The New York Times For fans of Humans of New York and PostSecret, a collection of raw, urgent, and heartfelt stories, shared anonymously. Helena Dea Bala was an exhausted and isolated DC lobbyist, suffocating under the weight of her student loan debt, when she decided to split her lunch with a man who often panhandled near her office. They chatted effortlessly as they ate; there were no half-truths or white lies, and no fear of judgment. Helena felt connected and unburdened in a way she hadn’t in years. Inspired, she posted an ad on Craigslist promising to listen, anonymously and for free, to whatever the speaker felt he or she couldn’t tell anyone else. Emails from people desperate to connect flooded her inbox, and she listened. Within months, Helena quit her job, deferred her loans, and dove into listening full time. The forty first-person confessions in this book are vivid, intimate, and real; they range from devastating traumas, to lost loves, to reflections on hard choices. Some accounts are quotidian, like that of one increasingly estranged husband: “I want to feel that we’re not just roommates—that we’re not just waiting for the kids to grow up so that we can move on.” Others are deeply disconcerting, like that of a sex addict employed by a religious organization and several are heartening, like that of a mother who dares to hope that her daughter, born with life-threatening heart defects, will one day walk down the aisle: “Sometimes you need to have the audacity to believe that it will all be okay, that it is okay to have the same kinds of dreams as everyone else.” In its complex portrayal of the common human experience, Craigslist Confessional challenges us to explore the depths of our vulnerability and expand the borders of our empathy.