| Impersonality: Seven Essays Contributor(s): Cameron, Sharon (Author) |
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ISBN: 0226091325 ISBN-13: 9780226091327 Publisher: University of Chicago Press OUR PRICE: $39.60 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: February 2007 Annotation: Philosophers have long debated the subjects of person and personhood. Sharon Cameron ushers this debate into the literary realm by considering impersonality in the works of major American writers and figures of international modernism--writers for whom personal identity is inconsequential and even imaginary. In essays on William Empson, Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, T. S. Eliot, and Simone Weil, Cameron examines the impulse to hollow out the core of human distinctiveness, to construct a voice that is no one's voice, to fashion a character without meaningful attributes, a being that is virtually anonymous. "To consent to being anonymous, " Weil wrote, "is to bear witness to the truth. But how is this compatible with social life and its labels?" Throughout these essays Cameron examines the friction, even violence, set in motion from such incompatibility--from a "truth" that has no social foundation. "Impersonality" investigates the uncompromising nature of writing that suspends, eclipses, and even destroys the person as a social, political, or individual entity, of writing that engages with personal identity at the moment when its usual markers vanish or dissolve. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Collections | Essays - Literary Criticism | American - General - Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh |
| Dewey: 814.3 |
| LCCN: 2006008930 |
| Physical Information: 0.61" H x 6.28" W x 9" (0.85 lbs) 272 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - British Isles |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Philosophers have long debated the subjects of person and personhood. Sharon Cameron ushers this debate into the literary realm by considering impersonality in the works of major American writers and figures of international modernism--writers for whom personal identity is inconsequential and even imaginary. In essays on William Empson, Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, T. S. Eliot, and Simone Weil, Cameron examines the impulse to hollow out the core of human distinctiveness, to construct a voice that is no one's voice, to fashion a character without meaningful attributes, a being that is virtually anonymous. "To consent to being anonymous," Weil wrote, "is to bear witness to the truth. But how is this compatible with social life and its labels?" Throughout these essays Cameron examines the friction, even violence, set in motion from such incompatibility--from a "truth" that has no social foundation. Impersonality investigates the uncompromising nature of writing that suspends, eclipses, and even destroys the person as a social, political, or individual entity, of writing that engages with personal identity at the moment when its usual markers vanish or dissolve. |
Contributor Bio(s): Cameron, Sharon: - Sharon Cameron is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emerita of English at Johns Hopkins University. |