Genius in France: An Idea and Its Uses - Hardcover

Jefferson, Ann

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691160651 ISBN 13: 9780691160658

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 2014

Über diesen Titel

Críticas:

"[Ann Jefferson] outlines for the first time a body of writings on genius in France that have tended to be overlooked until now."--Celine Surprenant, Times Literary Supplement "The precise linguistic, literary, and sociocultural analysis with which she supports this wide-ranging exploration of intellectual history provides compelling evidence for her contention that there is value in taking into account the particular language and cultural tradition within which ideas are expressed."--Jessica Goodman, French Studies "Ann Jefferson in Genius in France offers a genial and genial meditation on the question, focusing on a country that probably uses the word more than any other."--Andrew Martin, Literary Review

Reseña del editor:

This engaging book spans three centuries to provide the first full account of the long and diverse history of genius in France. Exploring a wide range of examples from literature, philosophy, and history, as well as medicine, psychology, and journalism, Ann Jefferson examines the ways in which the idea of genius has been ceaselessly reflected on and redefined through its uses in these different contexts. She traces its varying fortunes through the madness and imposture with which genius is often associated, and through the observations of those who determine its presence in others. Jefferson considers the modern beginnings of genius in eighteenth-century aesthetics and the works of philosophes such as Diderot. She then investigates the nineteenth-century notion of national and collective genius, the self-appointed role of Romantic poets as misunderstood geniuses, the recurrent obsession with failed genius in the realist novels of writers like Balzac and Zola, the contested category of female genius, and the medical literature that viewed genius as a form of pathology. She shows how twentieth-century views of genius narrowed through its association with IQ and child prodigies, and she discusses the different ways major theorists--including Sartre, Barthes, Derrida, and Kristeva--have repudiated and subsequently revived the concept. Rich in narrative detail, Genius in France brings a fresh approach to French intellectual and cultural history, and to the burgeoning field of genius studies.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0691160651
• ISBN 13: 9780691160658
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288