For about three thousand years comedy has applied a welcome humanist perspective to the world’s religious beliefs and practices. From the ancient Greek comedies of Aristophanes, the famous poem by Lucretius, and dialogues of Cicero to early modern and Enlightenment essays and philosophical texts, together with the inherent skepticism about life after death in tragicomedies by Plautus, Shakespeare, Molière, and nineteenth-century novels by such as Dickens and Hugo, the literary critic and historian Alexander Welsh analyzes the prevalence of openness of mind and relieving good humor in Western thought. The Humanist Comedy concludes with close examination of a postmodern novel by the Nobel Prize winner José Saramago.
Although it is customary to credit Freud's self-analysis, it may be more accurate, Alexander Welsh argues, to say that psychoanalysis began when The Interpretation of Dreams was published in the last weeks of the nineteenth century. Only by going public with his theory--that dreams manifest hidden wishes--did Freud establish a position to defend and embark upon a career. That position and career have been among the most influential in this century. In August 1899, Freud wrote to Wilhelm Fliess of the dream book in terms reminiscent of Dante's Inferno. Beginning from a dark wood, this modern journey features "a concealed pass though which I lead the reader--my specimen dream with its peculiarities, details, indiscretions, bad jokes--and then suddenly the high ground and the view and the question, Which way do you wish to go now?" Physician that he is, Freud appoints himself guide rather than hero, yet the way "you" wish to go is very much his prescribed way. In Welsh's book, readers are invited on Freud's journey, to pause at each concealed pass in his seminal work and ask where the guide is taking them and why. Along the way, Welsh shows how Freud's arbitrary turnings are themselves wishful, intended to persuade by pleasing the reader and author alike; that his interest in secrets and his self-proclaimed modest ambition are products of their time; and that the book may best be read as a romance or serial comedy. "Some of the humor throughout," Welsh notes, "can only be understood as a particular kind of fine performance." Welsh offers the first critical overview of the argument in Freud's masterpiece and of the author who presents himself as guide.
Focusing on Shakespeare's Hamlet as foremost a study of grief, Alexander Welsh offers a powerful analysis of its protagonist as the archetype of the modern hero. For over two centuries writers and critics have viewed Hamlet's persona as a fascinating blend of self-consciousness, guilt, and wit. Yet in order to understand more deeply the modernity of this Shakespearean hero, Welsh first situates Hamlet within the context of family and mourning as it was presented in other revenge tragedies of Shakespeare's time. Revenge, he maintains, appears as a function of mourning rather than an end in itself. Welsh also reminds us that the mourning of a son for his father may not always be sincere. This book relates the problem of dubious mourning to Hamlet's ascendancy as an icon of Western culture, which began late in the eighteenth century, a time when the thinking of past generations--or fathers--represented to many an obstacle to human progress. Welsh reveals how Hamlet inspired some of the greatest practitioners of modernity's quintessential literary form, the novel. Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Scott's Redgauntlet, Dickens's Great Expectations, Melville's Pierre, and Joyce's Ulysses all enhance our understanding of the play while illustrating a trend in which Hamlet ultimately becomes a model of intense consciousness. Arguing that modern consciousness mourns for the past, even as it pretends to be free of it, Welsh offers a compelling explanation of why Hamlet remains marvelously attractive to this day.
In this book Alexander Welsh considers the history and meaning of honor and dismisses the idea that we live in a post-honor culture. He notes that we have words other than honor, such as respect, self-respect, and personal identity, that show we do indeed care deeply continuing process of respect that continuing process of respect that motivates or constrains members of a peer group. Honor's dictates function as moral imperatives." "Surprisingly, little systematic study of the history of honor in Western culture has been attempted. Offering a welcome remedy, Welsh provides a genealogy of approaches to the subject, mining some of the most influential texts of the Western tradition."--Jacket.
One of the most influential works on Sir Walter Scott, The Hero of the Waverley Novels is a model for reconstructing ideas common at a given period in time. In this book Alexander Welsh draws upon the entire canon of Scott's fiction to demonstrate its bearing on property and the behavior prescribed for the propertied classes. Analyzing the "passive hero"--the protagonist who is acted upon by outside forces--he shows how Scott became such a powerful influence for nineteenth-century literature and history. Welsh has updated his book with an essay on history and revolution in Old Mortality, another on repression and the social contract in the novels, and an afterword on the contrast of styles. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
When he wrote Hard Times - which can be considered an epilogue to the much longer Bleak House - Dickens was able to conceive a plot neither centered around a hero nor fueled by the kind of wish fulfillment that structure had implied.
The present »Etymological Glossary of Old Welsh« is intended to offer an alphabetically arranged list of words which are found in the manuscripts transcribed before the beginning of the Middle Welsh period, and to provide them with the most important published references. Only the records written down during the Old Welsh period have been used is the compilation of the glossary. The only text which was not used is the »Book of Llan Dav«, which still requires to be comprehensively discussed, and is a subject for research on its own right. The data of this very important document is used throughout as comparanda for the research. The focus has been laid on the collection of the published analysis of the rudiments of Old Welsh; thus the glossary could be viewed as an extended bibliography for Old Welsh studies. The entries are arranged alphabetically according to the Welsh standard. The glosses which contain more than one word are segmented; in those cases where the segmentation could be problematic (and this applies to several particular fragments of Old Welsh versification), the components of the phrases are explicitly cross-referenced; when the segmentation is unclear, or the reading is variable, the components of the phrase are given as a complete entry. Homographic/homophonic lexemes are treated under the different headings. Similar or identical instances which were analysed differently are normally considered separately. Parts of compounds as well as morphemes from nouns are not treated separately; their discussion can be found in the entries which contain the first element of the composite word.
Set in the ironmaking town of Merthyr Tydfil, The Fire People is the story of Dic Penderyn who in 1831 became the first Welsh Martyr of the working class. Hanged for a crime that he did not commit, his story is told in this powerful novel which describes the events which took place during the famous Merthyr Tydfil riots of 1831.
Mostyn Evan and his family, miners turned bargees, wage a glorious but hopeless struggle against rapacious coalmasters, Irish navvies, the ravages of cholera, and the bullying illegal Unions. As they ply their trade between the furnaces of Cyfarthfa and the lush beauty of the Neath Valley, they pray and fight, sing and love, and face each obstacle undaunted with all the stubbornness and exuberance of Wales itself. This is the third instalment in Alexander Cordell's magnificent saga of nineteenth century Wales that began with classic bestseller The Rape of the Fair Country.
The first volume in Alexander Cordell's classic trilogy of mid-nineteenth century Wales. Set in the grim valleys of the Welsh iron country during the turbulent times of the Industrial Revolution, this unforgettable novel begins the saga of the Mortymer family - a family of hard men and beautiful women, all forced into a bitter struggle with their harsh environment, as they slave and starve for the cruel English ironmasters. But adversity could never still the free spirit of Wales, or quiet its soaring voice, and the Mortymers struggle on even as the iron foundries ravish their homeland and cripple their people. Rape of the Fair Country launched the bestselling career of Alexander Cordell in 1959 and went on to sell millions of copies in seventeen languages throughout the world.
It is the time of the Rebecca Riots when economic turmoil and unjust taxes have left the communities of south Wales in dire poverty with many on the brink of starvation. A time when young men ride through the night smashing and burning the symbols of their oppression. The Mortymer family have left their home in the iron-making country of Blaenafon to seek work in the coal mines of the south. Young Jethro Mortymer decides that he must join the rioters in their bitter struggle even as he is tortured by his own struggle to conceal the love he has for the beautiful Mari, his brother's wife. THE HOSTS OF REBECCA is a brilliant continuation of Alexander Cordell's classic story of mid-nineteenth century Wales which began with THE RAPE OF THE FAIR COUNTRY.
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