Description
Book SynopsisAnagnorisis has been called ‘one of the great works of comparative literary criticism of our time’. It is a book that spans the millennia, the adventures of Ulysses in Homer and God’s mysterious appearance to Abraham in Genesis, down not only to Joyce’s Ulysses and Thomas Mann’s Joseph and his Brothers, but also to Dumas’ Count of Montecristo, Borges’s ‘The Immortal’, and Walcott's Omeros. ‘Anagnorisis’ means ‘recognition’. Aristotle defined it simply as ‘the passage from ignorance to knowledge’. But the knowledge one gains in anagnorisis is neither scientific nor abstract – it is living knowledge in the flesh, as Euripides’ Helen understood when, seeing her husband again after many years, she exclaimed: ‘to recognize those we love is a god.
Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Note on Texts, Translations, Bibliography, and Style Introduction 1 Cinderella and the Greeks 2 Aristotle and the Philosophy of Anagnorisis 3 Re-Cognition, Reading, and Reconnaissance 1 Odysseus, Ulysses, Nobody The Universe of Recognition 2 Reason Electra and Hamlet 3 Towards Nothingness Oedipus and Lear 4 Recognizing God 5 To Recognize Is a God Helen, Magdalen, Hermione, Marina – Menuchim 6 A Spark of Love Medieval Recognitions 7 I know the Signs of the Ancient Flame Dante’s Recognitions 8 Are You Here? Brunetto, Dante, and Eliot 9 Through Time and Space Intertextual Recognition 10 To Conclude and Re-Cognize The Pain and Joy of Compassion Index
