Good God by Michael Brooks
What is the tragic imagination? And what role does it play in the works of William Shakespeare and Ralph Waldo Emerson? Explaining the tragic imagination as a creative faculty employed to answer the perennial>Riddle of the Sphinx - a theory of the world that advances human freedom and dignity in the face of historical injustice, cruelty and violence - Andy Amato seeks to recover and rehabilitate this concept by revealing its significance to both key works of philosophy and literature and our contemporary world.
This book begins with a close and careful reading of Emerson's first major work, Nature, in conversation with nineteenth and 20thcentury continental philosophy, critical theory and post-structuralism. Uncovering neglected elements of Emerson's philosophy, beyond his reputation as the philosopher of 'cheer', this book explores how Emersonian transcendentalism affirms rather than denies the tragic sense of life - tragic idealism - and makes a substantial contribution to philosophy's perpetual endeavour to solve the>Riddle. In the second part of the book, Amato then employs Emerson's theoretical lens to interpret Shakespeare's tragedy, King Lear. In doing so, he innovatively reframes the central themes of suffering, vision, nature, nothing, foolishness and silence toward achieving liberation. By pairing these two giants of literature and philosophy, The Tragic Imagination in Shakespeare and Emerson>not only offers fresh interpretations of>Nature>and>King Lear, but also makes the case for the renewed deployment of tragic imagination, in creative redress, to our current social-political situation.Michael Brooks has a PhD in quantum physics and is the author of the bestselling 13 Things That Don't Make Reason. He works as a physics and cosmology consultant for New Scientist magazine and is a journalist and broadcaster. His writing has featured in several national newspapers, including the Guardian, the Independent, the Observer, and the Times Higher Education, and he has given talks at Cambridge University, the American Museum of Natural History, and New York University. He resides in the East Sussex town of Lewes.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781789593280 |
| ISBN 10 | 178959328X |
| Title | Good God |
| Author | Michael Brooks |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Sacristy Press |
| Year published | 2024-02-01 |
| Number of pages | 254 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |