Title Mysticism in the mid-century novel / James Clements

Published New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, ©2011

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Description 1 online resource (1 volume) Contents Acknowledgements -- Introduction: The Middle Is Everywhere -- Towards an Ideal Limit: Linguistic Authority in the Work of Iris Murdoch -- From Apophasis to Aporia: William Golding and the Indescribable -- Verbal Sludge: The Ethics of Instability in Patrick White's Prose -- Bliss From Bricks: Saul Bellow's Moral Phenomenology -- Conclusion: Drawing Circles In The Sea: Un-Defining the 'Mystical Novelist' -- Endnotes -- Works Cited -- Index Introduction : the middle is everywhere -- Towards an ideal limit : linguistic authority in the work of Iris Murdoch -- From apophasis to aporia : William Golding and the indescribable -- Verbal sludge : the ethics of instability in Patrick White's prose -- Bliss from bricks : Saul Bellow's moral phenomenology -- Conclusion: drawing circles in the sea : un-defining the 'mystical novelist' -- Endnotes Summary The mid-century novelist has often been regarded as occupying an ambiguous intermediary period, lost somewhere in the no-man's-land between modernism and postmodernism. This book challenges this view by proposing that many of the period's most significant writers ₆ Iris Murdoch, William Golding, Patrick White, and Saul Bellow ₆ were united by a distinct and common concern: to return the increasingly interior novel to the world, and, by extension, to ethical engagement. They did this not by reviving the now-antiquated nineteenth-century realist novel, but by devising a new type of novel, one concerned with unveiling a transcendent Good that exists outside of the spheres of society, politics, and the individual will. To do this, without ignoring the philosophical ideas that had led to the novel's apparent impoverishment ₆ the opacity of language, and the loss of stable external sources of meaning ₆ they drew upon techniques and concepts from the canon of mystical literature: a body of writing that had long been devising methods of approaching the ineffable through literary means Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Subject Murdoch, Iris -- Criticism and interpretation Golding, William, 1911-1993 -- Criticism and interpretation White, Patrick, 1912-1990 -- Criticism and interpretation Bellow, Saul -- Criticism and interpretation SUBJECT Bellow, Saul fast Golding, William, 1911-1993 fast Murdoch, Iris fast White, Patrick, 1912-1990 fast Bellow, Saul 1915-2005 gnd Golding, William 1911-1993 gnd Murdoch, Iris 1919-1999 gnd White, Patrick 1912-1990 gnd Subject Mysticism in literature. English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism Australian fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism Philosophy in literature. Ethics in literature. LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh. American fiction Australian fiction English fiction Ethics in literature Mysticism in literature Philosophy in literature Ethik Motiv Literatur Mystik Motiv Philosophie Motiv Englisch. Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. Form Electronic book ISBN 9780230353923 0230353924

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