Search results for ""Author Antoine Compagnon""

Decía Montaigne que al escribir no hacemos sino glosarnos los unos a los otros y, a juzgar por Los ensayos, predicaba con el ejemplo. Todo discurso es repetición y toda escritura es glosa: está todo dicho, ésa es la ley del lenguaje, la condición del discurso. No obstante, hay muchas maneras de repetir lo que se ha dicho antes. Una de ellas, la más flagrante, constituye el punto de partida y el horizonte de este libro: la cita, no sólo la cita en sí, sino también el trabajo de la cita, la repetición o la referencia de segunda mano, como hecho de lenguaje y práctica institucional. Para entenderla será preciso analizar cómo funciona en la lectura y la escritura, cómo produce sentido en el texto y qué valores ha adquirido a lo largo de la historia. El análisis de la cita como persistente dispositivo de todo artefacto discursivo permite a Compagnon ocuparse de sus irrenunciables pasiones: Montaigne y Borges, desde luego, pero sobre todo la lectura y la escritura, dos caras de una endiablad

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Blaise Pascal is a marquee name, yet little read outside France. Antoine Compagnon provides an ideal introduction to one of the great intellects, contextualizing Pascal in his own time and offering insightful readings of the Pensées and the Provincial Letters. Compagnon proves a welcoming guide to Pascal's challenging and rewarding thought.

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Considerado por muchos el profeta de la modernidad, la actitud de Baudelaire hacia el dogma del progreso, simbolizado por la prensa, la fotografía, la gran ciudad y tantos otros fenómenos sociales y culturales, fue ambigua. Las manifestaciones de lo novísimo repelieron y cautivaron al poeta a partes iguales. Renegó de las creaciones y las dinámicas de la modernidad por sus consecuencias sociales, psicológicas, mora- les, artísticas e incluso metafísicas, pero volvió a ellas sin cesar; los periódicos de gran tirada le repugnaban, pero asedió a los canallas de los directores para que lo publicasen; arremetió contra la fotografía, y sin embargo es el protagonista de algunos de lo mejores retratos de escritor que conocemos. Esta eterna ambivalencia constituye el telón de fondo de El esplín de París, suma de las contradicciones del último Baudelaire, auténtico objetor de conciencia moderno, tan insospechado como irreductible, que Compagnon, con su característica perspicacia y finura, nos in

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A few years ago, Antoine Compagnon was asked to host a radio broadcast, every day for an entire summer, on a formidable subject: Michel de Montaigne. From that experience came this engaging and entertaining book. An intelligent and thought-provoking treatise in forty chapters that will introduce readers unfamiliar with Montaigne to his unique brilliance and remind those who already know Montaigne's work of its vitality, force, and enduring timeliness.

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For a long time, France and its culture have been one and the same. The greatness of the former added to the influence of the latter, and vice versa. French writers, artists and philosophers were at the centre of the world’s attention and enjoyed unparalleled prestige. Of this past glory, all that is left today is navel-gazing, nostalgia, and timidity. This was the disabused verdict reached by Donald Morrison, an American in Paris, at the conclusion his inquiry into the place of French culture in the world. The creativity of its artists may be undeniable, but the influence (ghostlike) and the importance (derisory) of France in cultural exchanges both go to show that French culture no longer speaks to the world. This decline ultimately suits the French national mentality, inclined as it is to lamentation and sorrow. When Morrison originally published this piercing verdict on contemporary French culture in Time magazine in November 2007, it caused a sensation. Morrison was pilloried by the French press and attacked in countless newspapers, magazines and blogs. Morrison’s article gave rise to an extended interrogation of French culture by admirers and critics alike. Undeterred by the controversy, Morrison has returned to his original article to see how well his central arguments hold up in the light of the criticisms levelled at him. This new and updated version of his controversial text is accompanied by a thoughtful reply by Antoine Compagnon, who highlights a certain ambivalence within French culture, still capable of achieving the best but seemingly paralysed by its preoccupation with its own grandeur. This important exchange between Morrison and Compagnon will be of great interest to anyone concerned with French culture and its legacy in the world today.

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