Narrating Demons, Transformative Texts: Rereading Genius in Mid-Century Modern Fictional Memoir

O?Hara, Daniel T.

ISBN 10: 0814211798 / ISBN 13: 9780814211793

Published by Ohio State University Press, 2012

About this Item

Book shows wear from use but remains a usable copy. May include writing highlighting underlining library markings. LISTING USES STOCK PHOTOS AND COVER MAY VARY. Ships via USPS and typically arrives within 10-12 business days.

Seller Inventory # ICV.0814211798.G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Narrating Demons, Transformative Texts: Rereading Genius in Mid-Century Modern Fictional Memoir
• Publisher: Ohio State University Press
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0814211798
• ISBN 13: 9780814211793
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: good

About this title

Synopsis

Narrating Demons, Transformative Texts: Rereading Genius in Mid-Century Modern Fictional Memoir, by Daniel T. O’Hara, acknowledges that the modern conception of literary genius is probably most lucidly expressed in the criticism of Lionel Trilling. But O’Hara also demonstrates that certain important and widely read mid-century modern fictional memoirs subversively return to an earlier conception that emphasizes the demonic nature of genius, a conception that is associated with the occult and the visionary and embraces the vision of evil articulated in earlier literature. O’Hara argues that Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus (1947), Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955), and William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch (1959) all demonstrate an imagining of genius in art and in life that stands in stark and total opposition to the emerging post–World War II age of conformity. These influential works show that genius is inherently a dangerous reality, albeit a creative one. Despite its most transcendent appearances, the full immanence of this conception of demonic genius condemns the modern world to a Last Judgment that is every bit as severe as any envisioned in the Western religious traditions.

About the Author

Daniel T. O’Hara is Professor of English and First Mellon Term Professor of Humanities at Temple University.