Living in Words: Literature, Autobiographical Language, and the Composition of Selfhood 1st Edition

Living in Words: Literature, Autobiographical Language, and the Composition of Selfhood 1st Edition – Ebook Instant Download/Delivery ISBN(s): 9780198841210,0198841213,9780192578150, 0192578154

Product details:

• ISBN-10: 0192578154
• ISBN-13: 9780192578150
• Author: Garry L. Hagberg

Living in Words: Literature, Autobiographical Language, and the Composition of Selfhood pursues three main questions: What role does literature play in the constitution of a human being? What is the connection between the language we see at work in imaginative fiction and the language we develop to describe ourselves? And is something more powerful than just description at work — that is, does self-descriptive or autobiographical language itself play an active role in shaping and solidifying our identities? This adventurous book suggests that interdisciplinary work interweaving philosophy and literature can answer these questions. Main sections investigate the relational model of the self derived from American pragmatism, the sense of rightness that can attach to descriptions of ourselves and our actions, the analogy between interpreting works of art and the interpretation of persons, the special power of literature as a self-compositional tool and the “architecture” of self-narratives and the corresponding growth of self-understanding, what we can learn from cautionary tales concerning the tragic lack of self-knowledge, the possibility of “rewriting” and “rereading” the self, and overall, the assembly of real-life structures of self-definition through our reflective engagement with literature.

Table contents:

1. Imagined Identities

2. Boundaries of Selfhood

3. Structures of Autobiographical Understanding

4. Three Tragedies of the Unexamined Life

5. Moments of Self-Definition: Forging a Self in Language

6. The Sense of Self

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