تاج زیتون وحشی: بازی، لیمینالیتی و مطالعه ادبیات

Examines the concept of play in Western thought, with special emphasis on the relationship between aesthetics and ethics, and envisions literary discourse as contributing to an alternative mentality based on peace rather than power.Mihai Spariosu's book strikingly intervenes in the debate raging among the various oppositional and hegemonic discourses by advancing a new philosophy that transcends the currently prevailing agonistic mentality. He develops a ludic-irenic view intended to exceed both a voluntaristic and rationalist mode of thought, thereby convincingly opposing the all-pervading mentality of power in a world marked by difference, scapegoating, and strife between various social, ethnic, racial, and sexual factions. The ludic-irenic stance, basically derived from the playfulness of literature, produces alternative mentalities and alternative worlds which promote a responsive understanding of what there is, thus bringing to bear a healing influence within the human community, in which power and difference will cease to be ultimates. What Spariosu puts forward and demonstrates by means of a stupendous erudition is no less than a total reorientation of cultural criticism that is bound to have its impact on the course cultural studies will take. The Wreath of Wild Olive CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION Part One TOWARD A LUDIC-IRENIC THEORY OF LITERATURE AND CULTURE: INTELLECTUAL HISTORICAL BACKGROUND,... Chapter 1 Nietzsche or Schopenhauer Can One Construct an Alternative Mentality? Chapter 2 Liminality, Literary Discourse, and Alternative Worlds 1. Liminality as Anthropological Phenomenon 2. Literary Notions of Liminality: A Brief Historical Overview 3. Literature, Liminality, and Alternative Worlds Chapter 3 Difference, Identity, and Otherness A Ludic-Irenic Perspective 1. Ontoepistemological and Sociopolitical Models of Difference 2. Psychosexual Models of Difference. 3. Irenic Models of Difference PART TWO LITERARY THEMATICS AND LUDIC-IRENIC HERMENEUTICS Chapter 4 Homicide as Play Dostoevsky, Gide, Aiken 1. Crime and Punishment: Homicide, Will to Power, and Christian Mentality 4. Homicide as Play in "Lafcadio's Adventures" 3. Conrad Aiken's "King Coffin" and the Concept of Perfect Murder Chapter 5 Race, Ethnicity, and Irenic Mentality Rebreanu, Eliade, Devi 1. "The Forest of the Hanged": Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Liminal Experience 2. "Maitreyi": Orientalism, Racial Difference, and Literary Perspectivism 3. "It Does Not Die": Love, Liminality, and Inner Being Chapter 6 Allegory, Power, and the Postmodern Game of Interpretation Nabokov, Lowry, Orwell 1. "Pale Fire" and the Agonistic Game of Wor(l)ds 2. Playing at Tragedy: Malcolm Lowry and the Modernist Symbol-Making Machine 3. George Orwell and the Will to Power as Utopia/Dystopia PART THREE LUDIC-IRENIC APPROACHES TO CULTURAL CRITICISM Chapter 7 Criticism as Irenic Play The Case of the Victorian Sages 1. Matthew Arnold and Criticism as a Ludic-Liminal Activity 2. Play and Irenic Mentality in Ruskin's "The Crown of Wild Olive" 3. Oscar Wilde and the Ludic-Irenic Self NOTES Introduction Chapter 1. Nietzsche or Schopenhauer: Can One Construct an Alternative Mentality? Chapter 2. Liminality, Literary Discourse, and Alternative Worlds Chapter 3. Difference, Identity, and Otherness: A Ludic-Irenic Perspective Chapter 4. Homicide as Play: Dostoevsky, Gide, Aiken Chapter 5. Race, Ethnicity, and Irenic Mentality: Rebreanu, Eliade, Devi Chapter 6. Allegory, Power, and the Postmodern Game of Interpretation: Lowry, Nabokov, Orwell Chapter 7. Criticism as Irenic Play: The Case of the Victorian Sages Selected Bibliography INDEX A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Z Examines the concept of play in Western thought, with special emphasis on the relationship between aesthetics and ethics, and envisions literary discourse as contributing to an alternative mentality based on peace rather than power."Spariosu's book is one of the most compelling accounts of the nature of play that I have ever encountered. Its breadth and depth of knowledge are remarkable, its understanding of the importance of play acute.This book is more than useful. It frames a number of crucially important issues in ways that are not to be found anywhere else. Play in itself is a topic that should receive increasing attention in the future in any case, and Spariosu's work here (and elsewhere) makes a fundamental contribution to this approach toward human understanding. I know of no other book that probes the notion of play from as many different angles and that manages to provoke as many different questions on the topic as this one". -- James S. Hans, Wake Forest UniversityThe title of this book (that is, the image of the olive) conveys the twofold cultural symbolism of ludic liminality and irenic transformation. Spariosu here both continues with and departs from his previous works, where he has sketched a broad genealogical outline of the concept of play in Western thought, with special emphasis on the agon between aesthetics and ethics, or between poetry and philosophy, as initiated by Socrates in Plato's Republic.In this book he moves back and forth between a genealogical and a speculative approach, envisioning the possibility of an alternative human mentality that is based not on power but on another formative principle, such as primordial peace (Levinas's phrase). Canhumans in general and Westerners in particular gain access to or build alternative mentalities, or even alternative worlds? What would the onto-epistemology, axiology, and etho-pathology of such a world look like? And how can literary discourse specifically contribute to the creation of an irenic mode of thought, feeling, and behavior? Pt. 1. Toward A Ludic-irenic Theory Of Literature And Culture: Intellectual Historical Background, Basic Principles. 1. Nietzsche Or Schopenhauer: Can One Construct An Alternative Mentality? 2. Liminality, Literary Discourse, And Alternative Worlds. 3. Difference, Identity, And Otherness: A Ludic-irenic Perspective -- Pt. 2. Literary Thematics And Ludic-irenic Hermeneutics. 4. Homicide As Play: Dostoevsky, Gide, Aiken. 5. Race, Ethnicity, And Irenic Mentality: Rebreanu, Eliade, Devi. 6. Allegory, Power, And The Postmodern Game Of Interpretation: Nabokov, Lowry, Orwell -- Pt. 3. Ludic-irenic Approaches To Cultural Criticism. 7. Criticism As Irenic Play: The Case Of The Victorian Sages. Mihai I. Spariosu. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 329-337) And Index.