Anagnorisis : : scenes and themes of recognition and revelation in Western literature / / Piero Boitani.

• Superior document: Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft ; 204
• VerfasserIn: Boitani, Piero,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Series: Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft ; 204.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource.

Anagnorisis 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 Contents

Preface / Anagnorisis -- 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.