Rewriting the Self: Histories from the Middle Ages to the Present

by Porter,Roy; Porter,Roy

• ISBN13: 9780415142793
• ISBN10: 0415142792
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-12-26
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Rewriting the Selfis an exploration of ideas of the self in the western cultural tradition from the Renaissance to the present. The contributors analyze different religious, philosophical, psychological, political, psychoanalytical and literary models of personal identity from a number of viewpoints, including the history of ideas, contemporary gender politics, and post-modernist literary theory. Challenging the received version of the "ascent of western man," they assess the discursive construction of the self in the light of political, technological and social changes. Contributors include: Peter Burke, Roger Cardinal, Stephen Connor, Jonathan Dollimore, Terry Eagleton, Kate Flint, E.J. Hundert, John Mullan, Linda Nead, Daniel Pick, Nikolas Rose, Jonathan Sawday, Jane Shaw, Roger Smith, Sylvana Tomaselli and Carolyn D. Williams.

Table of Contents

List of plates	vii
Notes on contributors	viii
Preface	xi
Acknowledgements	xii
Introduction	1	(16)
Roy Porter
Part I: Renaissance and early modern
Representations of the Self from Petrarch to Descartes	17	(12)
Peter Burke
Self and Selfhood in the Seventeenth Century	29	(20)
Jonathan Sawday
Self-Reflection and the Self	49	(12)
Roger Smith
Part II: Enlightenment
Religious Experience and the Formation of the Early Enlightenment Self	61	(11)
Jane Shaw
The European Enlightenment and the History of the Self	72	(12)
E. J. Hundert
The Death and Rebirth of Character in the Eighteenth Century	84	(13)
Sylvana Tomaselli
`Another Self in the Case': Gender, Marriage and the Individual in Augustan Literature	97	(22)
Carolyn D. Williams
Feelings and Novels	119	(16)
John Mullan
Part III: Romanticism
Romantic Travel	135	(21)
Roger Cardinal
`...As a Rule, I Does not Mean I': Personal Identity and the Victorian Woman Poet	156	(11)
Kate Flint
Mapping the Self: Gender, Space and Modernity in Mid-Victorian London	167	(19)
Lynda Nead
Stories of the Eye	186	(17)
Daniel Pick
Part IV: Modern and postmodern
The Modern Auditory I	203	(21)
Steven Connor
Assembling the Modern Self	224	(25)
Nikolas Rose
Death and the Self	249	(13)
Jonathan Dollimore
Self-Undoing Subjects	262	(8)
Terry Eagleton
Index	270