Baird Ishmael

Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4214-3564-0
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 0 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

Originally published in 1956. In Ishmael, Professor James Baird responds to the increasing secularization of Western civilization and the creation of what he calls "authentic primitivism." For Baird, the aesthetic austerity of Protestantism undermined the structure of symbols created by Catholicism. In the absence of a meaningful structure of cultural authority in Western civilization, "primary art" took on a quasi-religious role by connecting humans to a transcendent being. Ishmael describes a new system of art, beginning around 1850, that supplanted Christian symbolism. Baird examines writers who helped to create a modern authentic primitivism, with emphasis on Herman Melville, whom Baird sees as a locus of change for the cultural significance of primary art. Baird provides a social history and biography of writers who participated in the primary art movement from 1850 to 1950

Autoren/Hrsg.

Baird, James

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction
Acknowledgements
A Note on Documentation and Translation
Part I. The Nature of Recent Primitivism

Chapter 1. Primitivism and Cultural Failure

Chapter 2. Perdita: The volcanic Center
Part II. Ishmael: The Westward Mariner
Chapter 3. Melville's Pacific Voyages: An Evaluation

Chapter 4. The Perpetuity of Ishmael

Part III. Avatars: Symbols of Reincarnation from the Orient
Chapter 5. Obsession with the Primeval East
Chapter 6. Puer Aeternus: Eternal Innocence
Chapter 7. Polynesian Ethos
Chapter 8. Whiteness
Chapter 9. Shadows and Erotic Symbols
Chapter 10. Tree and Cross
Chapter 11. The Dragon Whale
Part IV. Images from the Urwelt: The World Before Civilization

Chapter 12. The Sea and Aqueous Images
Chapter 13. Original Nature

Part V. Entombment: Christianity Revisited

Chapter 14. The Infernal City
Chapter 15. The Holy Sepulchre
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Baird, James
James Baird was the Brigida Pacchiani Ardenghi Professor of English at Connecticut College. In addition to The Dome and the Rock, he wrote Ishmael, which was also published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

James Baird was a professor of English at Connecticut College. He also wrote The Dome and the Rock: Structure in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens.