Metamorphosis : : The Mind in Exile / / Harold Skulsky.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP e-dition: Complete eBook Package
• VerfasserIn: Skulsky, Harold,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2013]; ©1981
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: Reprint 2014
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (244 p.)

Fusing the methods of comparative literature, intellectual history, and philosophical analysis, Harold Skulsky explores a motif that has fascinated storytellers since antiquity: the miraculous transformation of a character into a plant, an animal, or a different human being. The thesis of the study is that the fantasy of metamorphosis challenges the narrator and his audience to confront certain basic anxieties about the human condition: Is the mind reducible to physical properties? What constitutes personhood? How does physical form affect personal identity and continuity of the self? Testing instances in which these and related perplexities appear in literature, Skulsky systematically and provocatively interprets ten major illustrative texts drawn from diverse epochs and languages, including the works of Homer, Ovid, Apuleius, Marie de France, Dante, Donne, Spenser, Keats, Kafka, and Woolf. Through Skulsky's masterly analysis the victims of metamorphosis in narrative literature--whether werewolf, ass, beetle, swine, or tree--provide a profound insight into the complexities of human experience.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- CONTENTS -- INTRODUCTION: The Problem and the Method -- CIRCE AND ODYSSEUS: Metamorphosis as Enchantment -- OVID'S EPIC Metamorphosis as Metaphysical Doubt -- THE GOLDEN ASS Metamorphosis as Satire and Mystery -- THE WEREWOLF OF MARIE de FRANCE: Metamorphosis Alienation and Grace -- THIEVES AND SUICIDES IN THE INFERNO Metamorphosis as the State of Sin -- SPENSER'S MALBECCO Metamorphosis Monomania and Abstraction -- DONNE'S "SULLEN WRIT' Metamorphosis as Satire and Metaphysics -- LAMIA AND THE SOPHIST Metamorphosis as the Inexplicable -- THE ORDEAL OF GREGOR SAMSA Metamorphosis as Alienation without Grace -- VIRGINIA WOOLFS ORLANDO Metamorphosis as the Quest for Freedom -- NOTES -- INDEX