Walker Percy’s Lancelot: a Philosophical Novel

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Novel

Utopia’s Moorish Inspiration: Thomas More’s Reading of Ibn Ṭufayl

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Regnier
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Philosophical Novel ◽  
Ibn Tufayl

A promising but neglected precedent for Thomas More’s Utopia is to be found in Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān. This twelfth-century Andalusian philosophical novel describing the self-education and enlightenment of a feral child on an island, while certainly a precedent for the European Bildungsroman, also arguably qualifies as a utopian text. It is possible that More had access to Pico de la Mirandola’s Latin translation of Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān. This study consists of a review of historical and philological evidence that More may have read Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān and a comparative reading of More’s and Ṭufayl’s two famous works. I argue that there are good reasons to see in Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān a source for More’s Utopia and that in certain respects we can read More’s Utopia as a response to Ṭufayl’s novel. L’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān d’Ibn Ṭufayl consiste en un précédent incontournable mais négligé à l’Utopie de More. Ce récit philosophique andalou du douzième siècle décrivant l’auto-formation et l’éveil d’un enfant sauvage sur une île peut être considéré comme un texte utopique, bien qu’il soit certainement un précédent pour le Bildungsroman européen. Thomas More pourrait avoir lu l’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān, puisqu’il a pu avoir accès à la traduction latine qu’en a fait Pic de la Miradolle. Cette étude examine les données historiques et philologiques permettant de poser que More a probablement lu cet ouvrage, et propose une lecture comparée de l’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān et de l’Utopie de More. On y avance qu’il y a non seulement de bonnes raisons de considérer l’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān d’Ibn Ṭufayl comme une source de l’Utopie de More, mais qu’il est aussi possible à certains égards de lire l’Utopie comme une réponse à l’Ibn Ḥayy Yaqẓān.

scholarly journals On the Role of Literary Works in the Course of Music Literature (Musicology)

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-224
Author(s):  
Izolda Tsakher
Keyword(s):  
Work Experience ◽  
General Music ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Music Literature ◽  
Continuous Interaction ◽  
Philosophical Novel

In the article, the author summarizes her work experience as a teacher of music literature at the theoretical department of F. Chopin College of Music. A historically continuous interaction between literature and music is doubtless. It can be seen, namely, in T. Mann’s deliberate referring to music regularities when creating a philosophical novel and in A. Deblin’s seeing music as a sort of model for literature. Understanding contacts between literature and music of the same period contributes to enlarging students' field of interests in literature. Referring to the works by the genius authors (A. Pushkin, J.W. Goethe) and to mythology determines new perception of music. In general, music is included in a broad semantic and aesthetic context. Meanwhile, perception of literary works is also enriched thanks to their correlation with the artistic personalities of J.S. Bach and W.A. Mozart. For example, one can notice how the unique personality of Mozart reveals itself in the light of the exclusively semantically concentrated Pushkin’s text. As a result, this direction contributes to achieving the goals of the musicology course at college.

Postscript

2020 ◽  
pp. 149-150
Author(s):  
Jonardon Ganeri
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Novel ◽  
The Many ◽  
As If

Among the many fragmentary texts that remain as Pessoa’s literary bequest are notes for what may have been intended as a philosophical novel. Dating from 1914, the following sketch is of particular interest: I do not know who I am, what soul I have. When I speak with sincerity, I do not know with what sincerity I speak. I am variously other than a self that I do not know exists (if it is those others) … I feel multifaceted. I am like a room with innumerable fantastic mirrors that distort false reflections, a single previous reality that is not in any and is in all. As the pantheist feels as if a wave, star, and flower, I feel as if various beings. I feel myself living other lives, in myself, incompletely, as if my being participated in all men, incompletely in each, individuated by a sum of non-selves synthesized into a dummy self....

Diderot's 'La Religieuse': A Philosophical Novel

1997 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 193
Author(s):  
J. E. Fowler ◽  
Christine Clarke-Evans
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Novel

Introduction: Crime and Punishment as a Philosophical Novel

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Robert Guay
Keyword(s):  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Philosophy And Literature ◽  
Practical Standpoint ◽  
Philosophical Novel ◽  
General Answer ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This introductory chapter raises the questions of what the relationship of philosophy and literature might be and, in particular, what might make Crime and Punishment a distinctively philosophical novel. Rather than trying to provide a general answer, I argue that the individual essays of this collection implicitly address these questions by calling for philosophical attention to particular elements of human experience. I then review the diversity of approaches the essays take up in doing so: for example, looking to the workings of language to understand the character of the mind, finding an affective orientation to human existence as a whole, gaining access to a practical standpoint, and responding to a utopian criticism of the traditional family.

The Viability of the Philosophical Novel: The Case of Simone de Beauvoir's She Came to Stay

Hypatia ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 791-809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley King Scheu
Keyword(s):  
Literary Work ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
Original Contribution ◽  
Philosophical Novel

This article begins by asking if the project to write a philosophical novel is not inherently flawed; it would seem that the novelist must either write an ambiguous text, which would not create a strong enough argument to count as philosophy, or she must write a text with a clear argument, which would not be ambiguous enough to count as good fiction. The only other option available would be to exemplify a preexisting abstract philosophical system in the concrete literary world. To move beyond such an impasse, this article turns to the work of Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoir's unique aesthetic theory in “Literature and Metaphysics” envisions philosophy as an integral part of the literary text and sees the novel not as an argument but as something called a “philosophical appeal” (Beauvoir 2004b). In her first novel, She Came to Stay, such a concept of the philosophical novel allows Beauvoir to make an original contribution to the philosophical tradition—one in which Beauvoir rethinks the problem of solipsism—while still creating a stunning literary work (Beauvoir 1954). A study of the theory and the novel together thus provides a solid understanding of what philosophers stand to gain from the philosophical novel.

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