Overview
This book offers an in-depth study of the rich tapestry of happiness discourses in well-known philosophical novels by Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Hermann Hesse and Ernst Jünger, published between 1922 and 1949. The study is prompted, in part, by an awareness that despite the interdisciplinarity of happiness research, Western literary scholarship has paid scant attention to fictionalized constructs of happiness. Each of the four chapters uses extended textual analysis to explore the sites in which happiness (Glück) and serenity (Heiterkeit) are sought, experienced, narrated, reflected upon and enacted. The author theorizes, with particular reference to Bachelard and Foucault, the interfaces between interior and exterior spaces and states of well-being. In addition to providing new interpretive perspectives on the canonical novels themselves, the book makes a significant contribution to a broader history of the idea of happiness through the appraisal of key intellectual cross-currents and traditions, both Western and Eastern, underpinning the novelists’ varied and nuanced conceptualizations and aesthetic representations of happiness.
Full Product Details
Author: Alan Corkhill
Publisher: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Imprint: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Edition: New edition
Volume: 57
Weight: 0.330kg
ISBN: 9783034307970
ISBN 10: 3034307977
Pages: 203
Publication Date: 20 December 2011
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
(...) an impressive exploration of fictionalized constructs of happiness, new readings of familiar texts with interesting juxtapositions, and a sustained argument for the re-evaluation of the happiness phenomenon. (Ingo Cornils, Modern Language Review 109, 2014/2)
«(...) an impressive exploration of fictionalized constructs of happiness, new readings of familiar texts with interesting juxtapositions, and a sustained argument for the re-evaluation of the happiness phenomenon.» (Ingo Cornils, Modern Language Review 109, 2014/2)
Author Information
Alan Corkhill is Reader/Associate Professor of German Studies at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. He is the author of four monographs and numerous book chapters and articles, chiefly on aspects of German literature from the Enlightenment to the present. His monographs include Australia and the German Literary Imagination 1754-1918 and Glückskonzeptionen im deutschen Roman von Wielands «Agathon» bis Goethes «Wahlverwandtschaften». He is also the Associate Editor of Seminar. A Journal of Germanic Studies.
