David P. Kinloch

The Thought and Art of Joseph Joubert (1754-1824), with Particular Reference to the Carnets

This book rescues Joubert from the ranks of minor French moralistes and by tracing the development of his thought, from his time as secretary to Diderot through to the period of his association with Chateaubriand, demonstrates that he was a writer on aesthetics of considerable sensitivity. Examination of his manuscripts and of his annotation to books in his library shows that Joubert's primary concern, during the period that witnessed the gradual but profound change from the intellectual values of the Enlightenment to those of the Romantic period, was to establish the status and nature of art and poetry. Reading widely among philosophers and poets from Plato and Homer to Kant and Andre Chenier, Joubert consigned his thoughts and perceptions to a series of Carnets which form the basis of this study and bear witness to an unusually eclectic and enquiring mind. Joubert's significance is not confined to the Enlightenment and Romantic periods. He is unique among writers of his day in the way that his own interrogation of the very act of writing anticipates the aesthetic of later, highly influential writers such as Stephane Mallarme.

The Thought and Art of Joseph Joubert, 1754-1824

In this collection of poems the Reverend Robert Walker skates again on Duddingston Loch, a goat devours 'Le Monde' in an Ethiopian desert, a minstrel pays a visit to a clinic for sexually transmitted diseases, and Pat Kane hits a high note with unexpected consequences.

Paris-Forfar

In Search of Dustie-fute

Gordon Millan

Since his death just over a century ago, Stéphane Mallarmé has become a major figure in world literature. Over this period, Mallarmé criticism has tended to concentrate on two aspects of his work. Firstly on textual analysis in order to tackle the difficulty of his writing and secondly, thanks to the interest shown in him by figures such as Barthes, Derrida, Kristeva and Lacan, on his theoretical writings. Indeed, this particular part of his oeuvre has somewhat dominated Mallarmé studies in the last thirty years. This book adopts a new approach by attempting to contextualise Mallarmé's creative writing in terms of his relationships with other art forms, other writers and indeed other cultures. At the same time one of his own key obsessions with death is also reassessed, as is his relationship to the society of his time. Mallarmé's ambitious project was to exploit the potential of dance, music and painting as well as poetry in order to produce an artistic monument for the modern post-industrial age. Experts from all of these fields have therefore combined with literary specialists in order to adopt an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to Mallarmé's work which marks a bold and exciting new departure in Mallarmé studies.

David P. Kinloch

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