Stanley Cavell's American Dream: Shakespeare, Philosophy, and Hollywood MoviesFordham Univ Press, 2006 - 248 pages This book explores Cavell's writings along converging lines of thought rather than in isolated categories. The author claims that, after Cavell's celebrated reading of King Lear turned into a nightmarish meditation on Vietnam, he found a more audible voice. Noting that Cavell's keen ear for the expressive power of ordinary language makes him both a first-rate literary artist and a compelling philosopher of the everyday, he catches what holds Cavell's manifold interests together. Here the poetry of ideas and presence of mind that animate Cavell's writing receive readings attuned to the spirit of their composition and its enlivening powers. |
From inside the book
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Page xii
... this book pervasively during my semester in Lisbon . The challenges of Portuguese freshly heightened my awareness of both the limits and resources of intelligibility available through language . I. xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
... this book pervasively during my semester in Lisbon . The challenges of Portuguese freshly heightened my awareness of both the limits and resources of intelligibility available through language . I. xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
Page 1
... challenged , Cavell appeals to Emerson's openness to such unorthodox possibilities . Emerson's readiness to characterize such an insight as merely a whim does not deter him from following it out and seeing where it will take him . He ...
... challenged , Cavell appeals to Emerson's openness to such unorthodox possibilities . Emerson's readiness to characterize such an insight as merely a whim does not deter him from following it out and seeing where it will take him . He ...
Page 6
... challenges the whole notion of philosophy as a profession while it seeks to recover what that field of study loses or , as Cavell likes to say , what it represses - by its compulsion to turn a calling into a profes- sion in its bid for ...
... challenges the whole notion of philosophy as a profession while it seeks to recover what that field of study loses or , as Cavell likes to say , what it represses - by its compulsion to turn a calling into a profes- sion in its bid for ...
Page 10
... challenge.27 In the Hollywood melodramas he studies Cavell characterizes the negation of conversation as irony that pervades and empties exchanges of immediate resonance for their inter- locutors , and Cavell's preoccupation with film ...
... challenge.27 In the Hollywood melodramas he studies Cavell characterizes the negation of conversation as irony that pervades and empties exchanges of immediate resonance for their inter- locutors , and Cavell's preoccupation with film ...
Page 14
... challenges of skepticism and belief with a degree of depth and nuance missing in the assessment of Cavell's work by con- temporary film scholars yet present in that work itself , as the above pas- sage demonstrates . Once Paula has been ...
... challenges of skepticism and belief with a degree of depth and nuance missing in the assessment of Cavell's work by con- temporary film scholars yet present in that work itself , as the above pas- sage demonstrates . Once Paula has been ...
Contents
1 | |
24 | |
On Bloom and Cavell on Shakespeare | 60 |
From Skepticism to Perfectionism | 83 |
From Cyprus to Rushmore | 105 |
Reading Cavell Reading The Winters Tale | 136 |
Cavells Rome | 172 |
Notes | 211 |
Index | 241 |
Common terms and phrases
acknowledge American appears argument become beginning Binx Bloom calls Cambridge Cavell's central challenge character characterizes Chicago claim comedy comes condition context conversation course criticism culture death describes despite discussion early effort Emerson Emersonian essay example existence experience expression face feel figures film final follows further genre give Happiness Harvard Hollywood human idea initially interpretation issue Italy kind King knowledge language leads Lear Leontes lines literary live marriage means mind Montaigne moral Moreover nature occasion offers opening particular Percy perhaps philosophy play Poems political possibility present problem Pursuits puts question reading Reason reflections regard relations remarriage represents requires response reveals seeks seems sense Shakespeare Shakespearean simply skepticism sort speak stand Stanley Cavell story Tale texts things thinking thought tion tragedy turn understanding University Press voice Winter's writing York
Popular passages
Page 53 - And for the usual method of teaching arts, I deem it to be an old error of universities, not yet well recovered from the scholastic grossness of barbarous ages, that instead of beginning with arts most easy (and those be such as are most obvious to the sense), they present their young unmatriculated novices at first coming with the most intellective abstractions of logic and metaphysics...
Page 120 - It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have made, that we exist. That discovery is called the Fall of Man. Ever afterwards, we suspect our instruments.
Page 158 - A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that ; move still, still so, and own No other function. Each your doing, So singular in each particular, Crowns what you are doing in the present...
Page 194 - We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams.
Page 92 - These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.
Page 179 - ... forever, Free as an Arab Of thy beloved. Cling with life to the maid; But when the surprise, First vague shadow of surmise Flits across her bosom young, Of a joy apart from thee, Free be she, fancy-free; Nor thou detain her vesture's hem, Nor the palest rose she flung From her summer diadem. Though thou loved her as thyself, As a self of purer clay, Though her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive; Heartily know, When half-gods go. The gods arrive.
Page 93 - Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars.