Publisher Description

Leo Bersani is an eminent literary critic whose influential work spans half a century. His vast, in many ways unclassifiable, oeuvre has traversed and blurred the boundaries of the disciplines of modern French literature, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, art history, film theory, philosophical aesthetics, and masculinity studies and sexuality studies. Oxford University Press published Bersani's first book, on Proust, in 1965, but the work has long been out ofprint. This new edition comes in response to a recent renewal of interest among philosophers of literature, among others, and features a new preface from the author.

Author Biography

Leo Bersani is Professor Emeritus of French at the University of California, Berkeley. His publications include Intimacies ( with Adam Philips, 2008), Forms of Being: Cinema, Aesthetics, Subjectivity (with U. Dutoit, 2004), Forming Couples: Godard's Contempt (with U. Dutoit, 2003), Caravaggio's Secrets (with U. Dutoit, 1998), and Homos (1995).

Table of Contents

PrefaceIntroductionChapter OneFantasies of the Self and the WorldI. "Je n'étais plus qu'un coeur qui battait"II. Self-effacement and self-projectionIII. The vulnerable self and its many deathsChapter TwoThe Anguish and Inspiration of JealousyI. The mystery of other people's desiresII. Jealousy and the tortured imaginationIII. Strategies to immobilize the "êtres de fuite," and "les joies de la solitude"IV. From the lover's anguish to the novelist's possessionsChapter ThreeThe Language of LoveI. The loved one's absence from the lover's desiresII. The self as an "appareil vide": a critique of psychological analysisIII. The "notes fondamentales" from the perspective of memory: psychological analysis reinstatedIV. The monologue of love as a dialogueV. The merging of fantasy and realismChapter FourSocial Contexts: Observation and InventionI. The aristocracy's glamorII. Society as a work of art: the poetry of the pastIII. Reflections of Marcel's psychology in the social worldIV. "Le royaume du néant"V. Variety of characterization and the general lawsVI. Marcel the character and Proust the authorChapter FiveMarcel's VocationI. The artist and the "résidu réel" of personalityII. Involuntary memory and the work of artIII. The "accent" of individuality in literary styleIV. Metaphor: "les surfaces sont devenues réfléchissantes"ConclusionNotesIndex

Promotional

A new edition of eminent literary critic Leo Bersani's first book, first published in 1965.

Long Description

Leo Bersani is an eminent literary critic whose influential work spans half a century. His vast, in many ways unclassifiable, oeuvre has traversed and blurred the boundaries of the disciplines of modern French literature, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, art history, film theory, philosophical aesthetics, and masculinity studies and sexuality studies. Oxford University Press published Bersani's first book, on Proust, in 1965, but the work has long been out of
print. This new edition comes in response to a recent renewal of interest among philosophers of literature, among others, and features a new preface from the author.

Feature

Selling point: A critically acclaimed early work from an eminient literary critic.
Selling point: Draws from a variety of disciplines, includign literary criticism, psychoanalysis, art history, and philosophical aesthetics.

Details