Lamentation and Modernity in Literature, Philosophy, and Culture

by Saunders, Rebecca

• ISBN13: 9781403983855
• ISBN10: 1403983852
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-09-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Examining modernity's pervasive rhetoric of loss and crisis from the unique perspective of women's lament traditions,Lamentation and Modernityanalyzes the ideological uses of loss in literary, philosophical, and social texts from the late 19th and 20th centuries. A significant reassessment of conceptions of modernity,At God's Funeralcontains studies of the lament tradition and the history of trauma; of philosophical texts by Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida; of literary works by William Faulkner, Stéphane Mallarmé, Dimitris Hatzis, and Tahar Ben Jelloun, and of relevant cultural contexts, including the American "New South," French nationalism of the 1880s, the Greek independence struggle, and the (de)colonization of Morocco.

Author Biography

Rebecca Saunders is the author of numerous articles on late 19th and 20th century literatures and culture; the editor and co-author of The Concept of the Foreign: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue (2002); and has served for five years as co-editor of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, where she has co-edited a number of special issues. She is Associate Professor in the department of English at Illinois State University.

Table of Contents

Heavy Losses: Modernity, Trauma, Philosophy

"And the Women Wailed in Answer": The Lament Tradition

Lamentation and (Dis)Possession: Faulkner'sAbsalom, Absalom!and the New South

Lamentation and Purity: Mallarmé's "Hommage,"wagnérisme, and French Nationalism of the 1880s

Lamentation and National Identity: Hatzis'sTo diplo biblioand the (De)Construction of Modern Greece

Lamentation and Gender: Ben Jelloun'sL'Enfant de Sableand the (De)Colonization of the Body

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