東華大學圖書館 |

Language: English

Help

回圖書館首頁

手機版館藏查詢

Back

Switch To: Labeled | MARC Mode | ISBD

Blaming Helen: Beauty and desire in...

The Catholic University of America.

Linked to FindBook

Google Book

Amazon

博客來

Blaming Helen: Beauty and desire in contemporary literature.

Record Type:	Language materials, printed : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Blaming Helen: Beauty and desire in contemporary literature./
Author:	Baker, L. Michelle.
Description:	294 p.
Notes:	Adviser: Virgil Nemoianu.
Contained By:	Dissertation Abstracts International69-12A.
Subject:	Literature, Classical. -
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=3340656
ISBN:	9780549955887

Blaming Helen: Beauty and desire in contemporary literature.
Baker, L. Michelle.

Blaming Helen: Beauty and desire in contemporary literature. - 294 p.

Adviser: Virgil Nemoianu.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Catholic University of America, 2008.

For more than thirty years, literary theory has been dominated by social critics and linguists while questions of the aesthetic are often marginalized. Using the symbol of Helen of Troy, this study suggests aesthetically viable ways of discussing both theory and literature. First reviewed are several manifestations of Helen from the classical era found in Homer, Gorgias, and Euripides, who demonstrate the essential nature of Helen's beauty, its autonomy, and its self-referential functioning. Chapters Two and Three examine idealist and materialist approaches to Helen posited by postmodern authors. The British novelist Hilary Bailey and the Greek poet Yannis Ritsos are studied as proponents of an idealistic aesthetic appalled by the power of Helen's form. Other postmodern authors including Valerio Manfredi, Barry Unsworth, and Christa Wolf confront the materiality of the aesthetic. Their conclusions are bleak, although Wolf suggests an ethics of personally responsible discourse rooted in the pull of the aesthetic that may circumvent some of the more destructive implications latent in the reality of symbols and sign systems. Her theory is confronted from a different angle in Chapter Four, where the libidinous aspects of Helen's beauty forge a potent talisman of the desire that motivates all human beings to individuation. To authors such as Elizabeth Cook, Mark Merlis, and Howard Barker, the physical beauty of a human form creates a longing for what Jacques Lacan describes as "the other," facilitating personal and cultural definition. In Derek Walcott's epic poem Omeros, human beauty is synonymous with the beauty of place. The aesthetic thus becomes temporal and ethereal. Thus are the essence, autonomy, and circularity of beauty first established during the classical era reasserted in the postmodern age in harmony with the positive (if tentative) social and personal implications outlined by Christa Wolf and Howard Barker. In analyzing these authors and their symbolic representations of Helen of Troy, this study demonstrates the range of attitudes toward beauty exhibited in the postmodern era, establishes a working theory of the relationships between beauty's material and transcendent properties, and introduces a framework in which further discussion of the aesthetic might be fostered.

ISBN: 9780549955887Subjects--Topical Terms:

1017779
Literature, Classical.

Blaming Helen: Beauty and desire in contemporary literature.
LDR:03241nam 2200301 a 45 001 855695
005 20100708
008 100708s2008 ||||||||||||||||| ||eng d
020 $a 9780549955887
035 $a (UMI)AAI3340656
035 $a AAI3340656
040 $a UMI $c UMI
100 1 $a Baker, L. Michelle. $3 1022348
245 1 0 $a Blaming Helen: Beauty and desire in contemporary literature.
300 $a 294 p.
500 $a Adviser: Virgil Nemoianu.
500 $a Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-12, Section: A, page: 4714.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Catholic University of America, 2008.
520 $a For more than thirty years, literary theory has been dominated by social critics and linguists while questions of the aesthetic are often marginalized. Using the symbol of Helen of Troy, this study suggests aesthetically viable ways of discussing both theory and literature. First reviewed are several manifestations of Helen from the classical era found in Homer, Gorgias, and Euripides, who demonstrate the essential nature of Helen's beauty, its autonomy, and its self-referential functioning. Chapters Two and Three examine idealist and materialist approaches to Helen posited by postmodern authors. The British novelist Hilary Bailey and the Greek poet Yannis Ritsos are studied as proponents of an idealistic aesthetic appalled by the power of Helen's form. Other postmodern authors including Valerio Manfredi, Barry Unsworth, and Christa Wolf confront the materiality of the aesthetic. Their conclusions are bleak, although Wolf suggests an ethics of personally responsible discourse rooted in the pull of the aesthetic that may circumvent some of the more destructive implications latent in the reality of symbols and sign systems. Her theory is confronted from a different angle in Chapter Four, where the libidinous aspects of Helen's beauty forge a potent talisman of the desire that motivates all human beings to individuation. To authors such as Elizabeth Cook, Mark Merlis, and Howard Barker, the physical beauty of a human form creates a longing for what Jacques Lacan describes as "the other," facilitating personal and cultural definition. In Derek Walcott's epic poem Omeros, human beauty is synonymous with the beauty of place. The aesthetic thus becomes temporal and ethereal. Thus are the essence, autonomy, and circularity of beauty first established during the classical era reasserted in the postmodern age in harmony with the positive (if tentative) social and personal implications outlined by Christa Wolf and Howard Barker. In analyzing these authors and their symbolic representations of Helen of Troy, this study demonstrates the range of attitudes toward beauty exhibited in the postmodern era, establishes a working theory of the relationships between beauty's material and transcendent properties, and introduces a framework in which further discussion of the aesthetic might be fostered.
590 $a School code: 0043.
650 4 $a Literature, Classical. $3 1017779
650 4 $a Literature, Comparative. $3 530051
650 4 $a Literature, Modern. $3 624011
650 4 $a Philosophy. $3 516511
690 $a 0294
690 $a 0295
690 $a 0298
690 $a 0422
710 2 $a The Catholic University of America. $3 1019220
773 0 $t Dissertation Abstracts International $g 69-12A.
790 $a 0043
790 1 0 $a Nemoianu, Virgil, $e advisor
791 $a Ph.D.
792 $a 2008
856 4 0 $u http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=3340656