Author : Alexander Mathäs
Publisher : Transits: Literature, Thought
ISBN 13 : 9781611480320
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)
Book Synopsis The Self as Muse by : Alexander Mathäs
Download or read book The Self as Muse written by Alexander Mathäs and published by Transits: Literature, Thought. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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, the volume 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.