From Tragedy to Apocalypse in American Literature: Reading to Make Sense of Our Endings

From Tragedy to Apocalypse in American Literature: Reading to Make Sense of Our Endings
by: Lin Atnip (Author)
Publisher: Lexington Books
Publication Date: 2024/6/15
Language: English
Print Length: 186 pages
ISBN-10: 1666925586
ISBN-13: 9781666925586
Book Description
From Tragedy to Apocalypse in American Literature: Reading to Make Sense of Our Endings argues that imaginative literature is essential to comprehending contemporary threats to the survival of the human species and the preservation of our humanity. Atnip outlines a theory of reading which directs us to realities and imperatives that are ignored, denied, or distorted by dominant social conventions and habits of cognition. She then puts this theory into practice through readings of postwar American works by Robert Lowell, Wallace Stevens, Cormac McCarthy, and Norman Maclean. This book argues that these texts collectively educate us to a new ground of sense—the apocalyptic sublime—and the need for an unending effort to comprehend what it means to live a human life against this inhuman background.
About the Author
From Tragedy to Apocalypse in American Literature: Reading to Make Sense of Our Endings argues that imaginative literature is essential to comprehending contemporary threats to the survival of the human species and the preservation of our humanity. Atnip outlines a theory of reading which directs us to realities and imperatives that are ignored, denied, or distorted by dominant social conventions and habits of cognition. She then puts this theory into practice through readings of postwar American works by Robert Lowell, Wallace Stevens, Cormac McCarthy, and Norman Maclean. This book argues that these texts collectively educate us to a new ground of sense—the apocalyptic sublime—and the need for an unending effort to comprehend what it means to live a human life against this inhuman background. Read more