The Wager of Lucien Goldmann : Tragedy, Dialectics, and a Hidden God

In The Wager of Lucien Goldmann, Mitchell Cohen provides the first full-length study of this major figure of postwar French intellectual life and champion of socialist humanism. While many Parisian leftists staunchly upheld Marxism's "scientificity" in the 1950s and 1960s, Lucien Goldmann insisted that Marxism was by then in severe crisis and had to reinvent itself radically if it were to survive. He rejected the traditional Marxist view of the proletariat and contested the structuralist and antihumanist theorizing that infected French left-wing circles in the tumultuous 1960s. Highly regarded by thinkers as diverse as Jean Piaget and Alasdair MacIntyre, Goldmann is shown here as a socialist who, unlike many others of his time, refused to portray his aspirations for humanitys future as an inexorable unfolding of historys laws. He saw these aspirations instead as a wager akin to Pascals in the existence of God. Risk, Goldmann wrote in his classic study of Pascal and Racine, The Hidden God, possibility of failure, hope of success, and the synthesis of the three in a faith which is a wager are the essential constituent elements of the human condition. In The Wager of Lucien Goldmann, Cohen retrieves Goldmanns achievementhis genetic structuralist method, his sociology of literature, his libertarian socialist politics. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. In The Wager of Lucien Goldmann, Mitchell Cohen provides the first full-length study of this major figure of postwar French intellectual life and champion of socialist humanism. While many Parisian leftists staunchly upheld Marxism's "scientificity" in the 1950s and 1960s, Lucien Goldmann insisted that Marxism was by then in severe crisis and had to reinvent itself radically if it were to survive. He rejected the traditional Marxist view of the proletariat and contested the structuralist and antihumanist theorizing that infected French left-wing circles in the tumultuous 1960s. In fact, the popularity of such trends in the Left Bank was one reason why Goldmann's own name and work were eclipsed - this despite the acclaim of thinkers as diverse as Jean Piaget and Alasdair MacIntyre, who called him "the finest and most intelligent Marxist of the age." . As Cohen shows in this brilliant reconstruction of Goldmann's life and thought, he was a socialist who, unlike many others of his time, refused to portray his aspirations for humanity's future as an inexorable unfolding of history's laws, but saw them rather as a wager akin to Pascal's in the existence of God. "Risk," Goldmann wrote in his classic study of Pascal and Racine, The Hidden God, "possibility of failure, hope of success, and the synthesis of the three in a faith which is a wager are the essential constituent elements of the human condition." In The Wager of Lucien Goldmann, Cohen retrieves Goldmann's achievement - his "genetic structuralist" method, his sociology of literature, his libertarian socialist politics. 000_FrontMatter......Page 1 001_Chapter 1......Page 15 002_Chapter 2......Page 54 003_Chapter 3......Page 77 004_Chapter 4......Page 106 005_Chapter 5......Page 129 006_Chapter......Page 168 007_Chapter 7......Page 215 008_Chapter 8......Page 264 009_Chapter 9......Page 297 010_BackMatter......Page 305 A detailed study of a major figure of post-war French intellectual life, who was a champion of socialist humanism. The text explores Goldmann's major achievements: his genetic structuralist method, his sociology of literature and his libertarian socialist politics. Mitchell Cohen. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [331]-342) And Index.