Description
Book SynopsisThis original book explores the concept and history of joy in the Western tradition. Winner of the 2009 Harry Levin prize, The Story of Joy will be of interest to scholars of the Renaissance to the late Romantic period, but will also appeal to readers interested in the history of emotions.
Trade ReviewReview of the hardback: 'With The Story of Joy, Adam Potkay has written a deep and humane book, work of impressive learning and intellectual agility that is at once challenging, sophisticated and a pleasure to read.' The Review of English Studies
Review of the hardback: 'Beautifully written, with verve as well as precision, Adam Potkay's The Story of Joy examines the changing meanings and fortunes of the concept of joy in history, literature, and film. Offering a substantial and scholarly treatment of a neglected topic, this book is also quirky, interesting, and a real pleasure to read. Its arguments are clear and cogent, and it makes very helpful discriminations between related affective states. The author deserves to be congratulated for an important, genuinely illuminating contribution to the study of emotion as well as literary history.' Jonathan Culler, Professor of English, Cornell University
Review of the hardback: '… a well written, literature-oriented, history of ideas study quite accessible to the non-specialist.' Christianity and Literature
'The Story of Joy … makes a crucial contribution to the study of the relationship of Romanticism and religion, and to the growing body of interdisciplinary scholarship devoted to challenging historical narratives of the inevitable march of secularism.' European Romantic Review
Table of ContentsPreface; Introduction: what is a joy?; 1. Religious joy: the ethics of oneness from the Bible to Aquinas; 2. Erotic joy: the Troubadour tradition; 3. The theology of joy and joylessness: Luther to Crusoe; 4. Ethical joy in the Age of Enlightenment; 5. The joys of doing and of being: Wordsworth and his Victorian legacy; 6. Joy and aesthetics: Coleridge to Wilde; 7. Post-Christian prophesies of forgiveness and exaltation; 8. Tragic joy and the spirit of music: Wagner, Nietzsche, Yeats; Conclusion: the career of joy in the twentieth century; Bibliography; Index.
