Scrutinizing the claim frequently made by critics that literary forms represent forms of consciousness, Eugene Hollahan attempts in Hopkins Against History a double-edged project. He applies popular critical methods - psychoanalytical, New Historical, interdisciplinary, and the like - as procedures in an examination of that rare poetic spirit Gerard Manley Hopkins. At the same time, and dialectically, the author uses Hopkins's life and oeuvre as a test case or paradigm case by which to measure some of the critical methods that attract much interest today. Hopkins Against History presents a new perspective on Gerard Manley Hopkins, the self-conscious unbordered soul struggling against history but in the process becoming a kind of antithetical hero, producing poems in sprung rhythm, a strange new poetic of lasting value.
This book examines the emergence of modern consciousness as consciousness develops historically in one cultural form: prose fiction narrative. The book represents a critical history of crisis, arguably the most characterizing single word in the modern world and a major figuration or trope. Eugene Hollahan has studied the history of this important word within the development of the English-language novel, from Samuel Richardson to Saul Bellow. After establishing a heuristic model for such a critical history, Hollahan tracks the word (characterized by George Eliot in Felix Holt, the Radical as a "great noun") through two-and-a-half centuries of narratives by major novelists, with contextualizing excursions into discourses in related fields such as autobiography, philosophy, theology, and social science." "Hollahan contextualizes his study of English-language narrative fiction by examining the writings of crisis-rhetoricians in the eighteenth century (Thomas Paine), nineteenth century (Thomas Carlyle, J. S. Mill, and J. H. Newman), and twentieth century (Karl Barth, Edmund Husserl, T. S. Kuhn, and Richard M. Nixon). Such varied and powerful crisis-rhetorics establish a matrix of language and ideas for the crisis-centered novels Hollahan surveys. These novels include major works by Samuel Richardson, Walter Scott, Jane Austen, George Eliot, George Meredith, George Gissing, George Moore, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, James Joyce, Lawrence Durrell, Robert Coover, and Saul Bellow." "Hollahan's description of the crisis-trope interfaces with various critical issues such as canonical inclusion, reader response, and deconstruction. On the whole, his book acknowledges current critical issues but endeavors to remain basically a critical history. It attempts to demonstrate that the crisis-riddled modern world and the crisis-conscious novel are analogous and coeval." "Crisis begins as Aristotle's term for logical plot structuring, becomes Longinus's term for emotional exacerbation, and eventually enters into a variety of critical and narrative formulations: Matthew Arnold's cultural centrality, Henry James's existential aestheticism, Lawrence's self-defining sexuality, Marshall Brown's revolutionary turning point, Paul de Man's error-ridden criticism, Floyd Merrell's cut into the primordial flux, Durrell's reborn self, and Bellow's analysis of hysterical escapism. Broadly speaking, Hollahan argues that any crisis-trope will enable or even necessitate a unique confluence of writerly and readerly skills." "In Louis Lambert, Balzac urged: "What a wonderful book one would write by narrating the life and adventures of a word." The story Hollahan narrates fulfills Balzac's expectations as it depicts writer after writer working out influential representations of human life in terms of crisis-consciousness centering upon George Eliot's "great noun" crisis. Historically, Hollahan demonstrates, such consciousness comes to define modern humanity."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This book begins with an account of the author's ancestral roots in Norway, Denmark and Great Britain and ends which his retirement in Happy Valley, Oregon, where he served as its Mayor from 1998 to 2006. His ancestors emigrated to America and fought and died in its wars, pioneered newly acquired territories and states, eventually reaching Eugene, Oregon, for which the author was named. His history includes surviving his oftentimes grim childhood in a dysfunctional family beset with serious domestic abuse and mental illness. The author describes his joy of discovering the stories of his ancestors' triumphs and tragedies. Their stories have all the drama of murder, suicide, war, crime, persecution, poverty, addiction, illicit affairs, abandonment, arson, insanity, domestic abuse, and other tragedies but also many triumphs. The sublime and spiritual contrasts with the carnal and depraved. It includes the sad story of the expanding frontier experience of American pioneers displacing native Americans and enslaving Blacks. The heart of this book is the creation of the author's immediate family and struggling to be successful as a prominent Oregon lawyer, local politician, local Mormon religious leader, and most importantly a father and husband. In part this is a religious autobiography. It is like biblical stories, an accounting and evaluation of being in the World but not of the World, an acknowledgement of how he has seen God's hand in the details of his life, the story of his religious conversion and path of discipleship through this veil of tears, seeking salvation. His story, therefore, ends with his evaluation, for the reader's benefit, of his lessons learned. His hope is that these lessons will help the reader appreciate his perspective and hopefully avoid his mistakes not the least of which were his conflicts, especially with political and religious extremists who increasingly bedeviled him during the highly polarized first two decades of the 21st century. This is also his intellectual and political autobiography. His faith was not one of withdrawal from the world into monastic simplicity, but rather one of enthusiastically engaging a complex world by gaining a higher education and using his knowledge and values to help the City of Happy Valley become a thriving and attractive community for likeminded families. It includes the story of how he led Happy in becoming Oregon's fastest growing city. It is also the story of his interaction with the leaders of Clackamas County and all its cities, including both allies and opponents. Lastly, this book includes the story of his legal career. He was fortunate to play a significant role in two leading law firms and his 40-year career helped shape the built environment of the City of Portland, the Metro Region, and the State of Oregon. He worked with many prominent and interesting Oregonians in the process. His legal career was completed by serving for almost two years as a senior legal missionary for his church in the Pacific Area including Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific islands.
This book examines the emergence of modern consciousness as consciousness develops historically in one cultural form: prose fiction narrative. The book represents a critical history of crisis, arguably the most characterizing single word in the modern world and a major figuration or trope. Eugene Hollahan has studied the history of this important word within the development of the English-language novel, from Samuel Richardson to Saul Bellow. After establishing a heuristic model for such a critical history, Hollahan tracks the word (characterized by George Eliot in Felix Holt, the Radical as a "great noun") through two-and-a-half centuries of narratives by major novelists, with contextualizing excursions into discourses in related fields such as autobiography, philosophy, theology, and social science." "Hollahan contextualizes his study of English-language narrative fiction by examining the writings of crisis-rhetoricians in the eighteenth century (Thomas Paine), nineteenth century (Thomas Carlyle, J. S. Mill, and J. H. Newman), and twentieth century (Karl Barth, Edmund Husserl, T. S. Kuhn, and Richard M. Nixon). Such varied and powerful crisis-rhetorics establish a matrix of language and ideas for the crisis-centered novels Hollahan surveys. These novels include major works by Samuel Richardson, Walter Scott, Jane Austen, George Eliot, George Meredith, George Gissing, George Moore, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, James Joyce, Lawrence Durrell, Robert Coover, and Saul Bellow." "Hollahan's description of the crisis-trope interfaces with various critical issues such as canonical inclusion, reader response, and deconstruction. On the whole, his book acknowledges current critical issues but endeavors to remain basically a critical history. It attempts to demonstrate that the crisis-riddled modern world and the crisis-conscious novel are analogous and coeval." "Crisis begins as Aristotle's term for logical plot structuring, becomes Longinus's term for emotional exacerbation, and eventually enters into a variety of critical and narrative formulations: Matthew Arnold's cultural centrality, Henry James's existential aestheticism, Lawrence's self-defining sexuality, Marshall Brown's revolutionary turning point, Paul de Man's error-ridden criticism, Floyd Merrell's cut into the primordial flux, Durrell's reborn self, and Bellow's analysis of hysterical escapism. Broadly speaking, Hollahan argues that any crisis-trope will enable or even necessitate a unique confluence of writerly and readerly skills." "In Louis Lambert, Balzac urged: "What a wonderful book one would write by narrating the life and adventures of a word." The story Hollahan narrates fulfills Balzac's expectations as it depicts writer after writer working out influential representations of human life in terms of crisis-consciousness centering upon George Eliot's "great noun" crisis. Historically, Hollahan demonstrates, such consciousness comes to define modern humanity."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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