The Literature of Pity

by Punter, David

• ISBN13: 9780748639496
• ISBN10: 0748639497
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-04-30
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Summary

Pity is a combination of fear, helplessness and overwhelming agitation. The term suffuses our everyday lives; it is also a dangerous term hovering between approval of sympathy and disapproval of emotional wallowing ('self-pity'). David Punter traces an entire history of pity, as an emotion and as an element in the arts, engaging as it does so with a wealth of theoretical ideas including Freud, Derrida, Levinas and others. An original treatment of the concept of pity, providing detailed textual criticism and speculative argument A wide-ranging history of pity, from ancient Greek theory to the present day Covers a wide variety of texts, including fiction, poetry and drama Engages with the most recent theoretical debates about literature and the emotions

Author Biography

David Punter is Professor of English at the University of Bristol.