Self and Soul : : A Defense of Ideals / / Mark Edmundson.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Harvard University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Edmundson, Mark,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2015]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Edition: Pilot project. eBook available to selected US libraries only
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (304 p.)

An ARTery Best Book of the Year An Art of Manliness Best Book of the Year In a culture that has become progressively more skeptical and materialistic, the desires of the individual self stand supreme, Mark Edmundson says. We spare little thought for the great ideals that once gave life meaning and worth. Self and Soul is an impassioned effort to defend the values of the Soul. “An impassioned critique of Western society, a relentless assault on contemporary complacency, shallowness, competitiveness and self-regard…Throughout Self and Soul, Edmundson writes with a Thoreau-like incisiveness and fervor…[A] powerful, heartfelt book.” —Michael Dirda, Washington Post “[Edmundson’s] bold and ambitious new book is partly a demonstration of what a ‘real education’ in the humanities, inspired by the goal of ‘human transformation’ and devoted to taking writers seriously, might look like…[It] quietly sets out to challenge many educational pieties, most of the assumptions of recent literary studies—and his own chosen lifestyle.” —Mathew Reisz, Times Higher Education “Edmundson delivers a welcome championing of humanistic ways of thinking and living.” —Kirkus Reviews

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Main Sources Cited in the Text -- Polemical Introduction: The Triumph of Self -- I. Ancient Ideals -- 1. The Hero -- 2. The Saint -- 3. The Thinker -- II. Ideals in the Modern World -- 4. Shakespeare and the Early Modern Self -- 5. The Poet -- 6. Freud and the Ideal Self -- Polemical Conclusion: In the Culture of the Counterfeit -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Index