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 3
... comedy of remarriage belong to these years , as the Introduction to Pursuits of Happi- ness and its chapter on The Philadelphia Story vividly demonstrate . These convergences bespeak Cavell's ambition to make his thought more widely ...
... comedy of remarriage belong to these years , as the Introduction to Pursuits of Happi- ness and its chapter on The Philadelphia Story vividly demonstrate . These convergences bespeak Cavell's ambition to make his thought more widely ...
Page 15
... comedy of remar- riage . It is public enough in its intelligibility to moviegoers to stand as a rebuke to the actual world we inhabit . There the inevitable ambiguities and misunderstandings of verbal communication become opportunities ...
... comedy of remar- riage . It is public enough in its intelligibility to moviegoers to stand as a rebuke to the actual world we inhabit . There the inevitable ambiguities and misunderstandings of verbal communication become opportunities ...
Page 26
... Comedy of Remarriage for the first time . The exigencies of that particular moment can clarify the ecstasies that I enjoyed in reading that book . I was then , as the saying goes , " ABD , " or " all but dissertation , " in Comparative ...
... Comedy of Remarriage for the first time . The exigencies of that particular moment can clarify the ecstasies that I enjoyed in reading that book . I was then , as the saying goes , " ABD , " or " all but dissertation , " in Comparative ...
Page 27
... comedy of remarriage . Pursuits of Happiness fully deserves Carolyn Heilbrun's guarded superlative in characterizing the book as " perhaps the best marriage manual ever published , " and I wel- comed the wisdom it offers on relations ...
... comedy of remarriage . Pursuits of Happiness fully deserves Carolyn Heilbrun's guarded superlative in characterizing the book as " perhaps the best marriage manual ever published , " and I wel- comed the wisdom it offers on relations ...
Page 28
... comedy , however , unhappy lov- ers take their marital squabbles to Connecticut . There they enjoy the same sort of release from otherwise insurmountable problems as their Shakespearean antecedents experience in their idyllic escapades ...
... comedy , however , unhappy lov- ers take their marital squabbles to Connecticut . There they enjoy the same sort of release from otherwise insurmountable problems as their Shakespearean antecedents experience in their idyllic escapades ...
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 Antony argument Band Wagon become Binx Binx's Bloom calls Cambridge Cary Grant Cavell finds Cavell's Cavell's essay Cavell's reading Cavell's writing challenge characterizes Cities of Words Claim of Reason Cleopatra comedy of remarriage Contesting Tears context course criticism culture Descartes despite DiBattista Disowning Knowledge Emerson Emerson's Transcendental Etudes Emersonian Engle Essays and Poems experience expression film genre Gooding-Williams Hamlet Harold Bloom Harvard University Press Hermione Hermione's Hollywood comedy Hollywood movies human Ibid idea interpretation Justin Hodge King Lear Larkin's Leontes literary marriage melodrama Milton Montaigne Montaigne's moods moral Moreover Moviegoer Nietzsche North by Northwest occasion ordinary language philosophy Othello perfectionism perhaps perspective Philadelphia Story philosophy phrase play play's Pursuits of Happiness question remarriage comedy Renaissance response reveals Rorty scholar seeks Self-Reliance sense Shakespeare skepticism sonnet sort Stanley Cavell Stella Dallas texts thinking Thoreau Thornhill tion Tracy turn Walker Percy Winter's Tale Wittgenstein 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.