Venturing upon dizzy heights : lectures and essays on philosophy, literature, and the arts

This book assembles lectures and essays on literature (William Wordsworth, Walter Benjamin, Chinese mountain poetry, Friedrich Nietzsche, the Tao Te Ching ), art (Paleolithic cave art, Vincent Van Gogh, American landscape painting), and Japanese poetry forms (haiku, haibun, tanka) that were originally presented and published between 2000 and 2007. The essays identify strategies to counter the so-called postmodern condition. Matters of will, ethics, and consciousness are examined in comparative contexts with the aim of formulizing models of enlightened states of being and their aesthetic expressions. This study focuses on Wordsworth’s rainbow epiphany; Walter Benjamin’s «aura» and «monad»; Chinese mountain poetry’s cosmic emptiness; Nietzsche’s Hyperborean; Paleolithic cave art’s transpersonal expression; Van Gogh’s «dizzy heights» of natural beauty; American landscape painters’ depiction of the sublime; haiku’s absolute metaphor epiphany; and tanka’s connection between natural beauty and erotic feeling. The collection is a re-examination of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s «fundamental unity» between humanity and nature, as well as an examination of often-unmediated affective experience and its expression in this context through literature and art Lectures and essays on philosophy, literature, and the arts Wordsworth's rainbow and ours : a kabbalist understanding of beauty Being is believing : the underpinnings of Walter Benjamin's deconstruction of historicism Dancing cranes and empty mind : the fusion of Wu-Chi and Tai-Chi in ancient Chinese mountain poetry The willing subject and the non-willing subject in the Tao Te Ching and Nietzsche's hyperborean : Taoist and deconstructive challenges to the idea of virtue Dances with bears : the beginnings of western art Vincent van Gogh's irises : venturing upon dizzy heights Figureless landscape : the persistence of the sublime in American landscape Painting The essence of haiku A world out of balance and in balance : urban and nature haiku Narratives of the heart : haibun On defining haibun to a western audience Tanka : celebrating the natural world and the postmodern condition. "This book assembles lectures and essays on literature (William Wordsworth, Walter Benjamin, Chinese mountain poetry, Friedrich Nietzsche, the Tao Te Ching), art (Paleolithic cave art, Vincent Van Gogh, American landscape painting), and Japanese poetry forms (haiku, haibun, tanka) that were originally presented and published between 2000 and 2007. The essays identify strategies to counter the so-called postmodern condition. Matters of will, ethics, and consciousness are examined in comparative contexts with the aim of formulizing models of enlightened states of being and their aesthetic expressions." "The collection is a re-examination of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "fundamental unity" between humanity and nature, as well as an examination of often-unmediated affective experience and its expression in this context through literature and art."--BOOK JACKET