1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910810548603321

Titolo

The self as muse : narcissism and creativity in the German imagination, 1750-1830 / / edited by Alexander Mathäs

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Lanham, Md., : Bucknell University Press

Plymouth, England, : Co-published with Rowman & Littlefield Pub. Group, c2011

ISBN

1-61148-033-7

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (vii, 222 p.) : ill

Collana

Transits : Literature, Thought & Culture 1650-1850

Altri autori (Persone)

MathäsAlexander <1951->

Disciplina

830.9/353

Soggetti

German literature - 18th century - History and criticism

German literature - 19th century - History and criticism

Narcissism - Germany - History

Narcissism in literature

Self in literature

Subjectivity in literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters and index.

Nota di contenuto

Narcissism and the self: an introduction / Alexander Mathäs -- Part I: Narcissism and the senses. Narcissism and the sublime / Alexander Mathäs; -- Narcissism, the self, and empathy: the paradox that created modern literature / Fritz Breithaupt -- Part II: Narcissism and morality. Self-reflection and knowledge of self in Hamann's early philosophical and aesthetic writings / F. Corey Roberts; Narcissistic investments and transformations in Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel's Lebenslaufe nach aufsteigender Linie and Über die Ehe / Ann Schmiesing; "Some day my prince will come": Fürstenspiegel and the bourgeois writer / Gail K. Hart -- Part III: Over and against Freud. Werther's sentimental narcissism: consciousness, communication, and the origin of the modern psyche / Edgar Landgraf; -- "I suffered and I loved": narcissism and abject desire in Goethe's "Confessions of a beautiful soul" / Susan Gustafson -- Part IV: Reading and writing narcissism. Textual narcissism in Kleist's "Über das Marionettentheater" / Richard Block; That Specter in my name:



writing and its mirror effects in Hoffmann and Poe / Martin Klebes.

Sommario/riassunto

While there are countless philosophical and psychological studies that focus on sources of the self, narcissism - the creation of an ideal image of the self and the vain attempt to merge with it - has found relatively little attention in a pre-Freudian context. The Self as Muse fills this gap by examining various aspects of narcissism and their significance for the outpouring of creativity in late eighteenth and nineteenth-century German literature. Narcissism provided an impetus for poetic production when writers expressed what they perceived as the inner workings of their soul. By showing narcissism's pervasive allure for a broad array of literary productions, MathSs shows that narcissism is a constitutive force in both literary production and the construction of modern subjectivity. Yet this construction is by no means complete and invites the reader to strive toward the illusive image of an ideal.