Book Cover
E-book
Author Nemoianu, Virgil

Title Imperfection and defeat : the role of aesthetic imagination in human society / by Virgil Nemoianu
Published Budapest ; New York : Central European University Press, 2006

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Description 1 online resource (150 pages)
Contents A philosophical foundation -- The dialectic of literature and religion -- The dialectic of literature and history -- East/Central Europe as a confirmatory case study -- Literature as allegory of human persecution and survival
Summary Literature is defined in a challenging way as the "science" of imperfection and defeat, or else as a type of discourse that deals with defeat, loss, uncertainty in social life, by contrast with virtually all disciplines (hard sciences or social sciences) that affirm certainties and wish to convince us of truths. If in real history most constructive attempts end up in failure, it follows that we ought to have also a field of research that examines this diversity of failures and disappointments, as well as the alternative options to historical evolution and progress. Thus literature serves an indispensable role: that of gleaning the abundance of past existence, the gratuitous and the rejected being placed here on an equal level with the useful and the successful. This provocative and unusual approach is illustrated in chapters that deal with the dialectics between literary writing and such fields as historical writing, or religious discourses, and is also illustrated by the socio-historical development of East-Central Europe
Analysis Aesthetics, Historiography, Literature, Religion
Notes Includes index
Revisions of lectures delivered at the Central European University in Feb.-March 2004
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
English
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Print version record
Subject Literature and history.
Literature -- Aesthetics.
TRAVEL -- Special Interest -- Literary.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- General.
Literature -- Aesthetics
Literature and history
Literatur
Poetik
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2006020006
ISBN 1429413425
9781429413428
9786155211058
6155211051
1281376655
9781281376657
9786611376659
6611376658