| Description |
1 online resource (viii, 180 pages). |
| Series |
Cambridge studies in American literature and culture |
|
Cambridge studies in American literature and culture.
|
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 171-176) and index. |
| Summary |
"Linking classic American literature to contemporary popular culture, Sublime Enjoyment argues that the rational systems of normal social life are motivated and sustained by "perverse" desires. This perversity arises from the failure of symbolic satisfactions - love, work, success - to make us happy, and from our refusal to accept that failure. Hoping to achieve satisfaction, we respond ultimately to situations that evoke older, more primary drives and their attendant emotions. But while a conventional pervert knows exactly what to want, the healthy pervert must find enjoyment inadvertently: in the abject or the sublime, in duty and reason, and in the obligations of a "fun morality." Examining the ways in which this inadvertence is represented in American literature and culture, Dennis Foster identifies ways that longings are linked to social forces."--Jacket. |
| Contents |
Introduction: the problem with pleasure -- The sublime community -- Re-Poe man: Poe's un-american sublime -- "Too resurgent": liquidity and consumption in Henry James -- Alphabetic pleasures: the names -- J.G. Ballard's Empire of the senses: perversion and the failure of authority -- Fatal west: W.S. Burrough's perverse destiny -- Conclusion: agency in the perverse. |
| Note |
Print version record. |
| Subject |
American literature -- History and criticism.
|
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Sublime, The, in literature.
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Pleasure in literature.
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Popular culture -- United States.
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Desire in literature.
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Literature and society -- United States -- History.
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National characteristics, American, in literature.
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Aesthetics, American.
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Psychoanalysis and literature -- United States.
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American literature -- Psychological aspects.
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
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Aesthetics, American. (OCoLC)fst00798740
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American literature. (OCoLC)fst00807113
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American literature -- Psychological aspects.
(OCoLC)fst00807229
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Desire in literature. (OCoLC)fst00891364
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Literature and society. (OCoLC)fst01000096
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National characteristics, American, in literature. (OCoLC)fst01033350
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Pleasure in literature. (OCoLC)fst01067089
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Popular culture. (OCoLC)fst01071344
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Psychoanalysis and literature. (OCoLC)fst01081273
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Sublime, The, in literature. (OCoLC)fst01136597
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United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
|
| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc. (OCoLC)fst01411635
|
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History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
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| Other Form: |
Print version: Foster, Dennis A. Sublime enjoyment. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1997 052158437X (DLC) 96040352 (OCoLC)37106714 |
| ISBN |
0511005105 (electronic bk.) |
|
9780511005107 (electronic bk.) |
|
