1st Edition
Imperfection and Defeat The Role of Aesthetic Imagination in Human Society
By Virgil Nemoianu
Copyright 2006
154 Pages
by
Central European University Press
Literature is defined in a challenging way as the science of imperfection and defeat, or else as a type of discourse that deals with defeat, loss, uncertainty in social life, by contrast with virtually all disciplines (hard sciences or social sciences) that affirm certainties and wish to convince us of truths. If in real history most constructive attempts end up in failure, it follows that we... Read more
Introduction, Chapter One: A Philosophical Foundation, Chapter Two: The Dialectic of Literature and Religion, Chapter Three: The Dialectic of Literature and History Bibliography, Chapter Four: East/Central Europe as a Confirmatory Case Study Bibliography, Chapter Five: Literature as Allegory of Human Persecution and Survival, Index
Biography
Virgil Nemoianu is William J. Byron Distinguished Professor of Literature and Ordinary Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC. He is the author and editor of over 700 articles, reviews, and columns on three continents, and over 15 books including The Taming of Romanticism (Harvard UP, 1985), The Theory of the Secondary (Johns Hopkins UP, 1989) and The Triumph of Imperfection (Univ. S. Carolina UP, 2005).
