The Affirming Flame: A Poetics of Meaning

by Maurice S. Friedman

Overview

Professor Friedman explores the rich tapestry of our humanness as we strive to find meaning in our experiences, even in the midst of the evil and death that threaten to put an end to it all. This struggle is vividly captured in literary and poetic works that epitomise what Friedman describes as our effort to hold the tension between affirming where we can affirm and withstanding where we must withstand.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781573922593
Publisher:	Prometheus Books
Publication date:	03/01/1999
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.57(d)

About the Author

Maurice S. Friedman is professor emeritus of religious studies, philosophy, and comparative literature at San Diego State Uniersity and co-director of the Institute for Dialogical Psychotherapy in San Diego. He has authored over twenty books of literary criticism, psychology, philosophy, and religion.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	11
	Preface	17
	Introduction: A Poetics of Meaning	21
Part I	Finding Meaning in the Lived Concrete
Chapter 1	Mystics of the Particular	33
	Taoist, Zen, and Hasidic Masters
	Traherne, Whitman, Black Elk, Dostoyevsky, Heschel
Chapter 2	Poets of the Here and Now	47
	Rilke, Levertov, Berry, Dillard
Part II	Evil and the Absurd: The Threat of Meaninglessness
Chapter 3	The Shattering of Security	65
	Melville's Moby Dick and Achebe's Things Fall Apart
Chapter 4	Faith, Anguish, and Doubt	73
	Dostoyevsky, Dickinson, Hopkins, and Levertov
Chapter 5	The Demonism of Nature	87
	Melville's Moby Dick
Chapter 6	Human Demonism	95
	Black Elk and Rabbit Boss, Morrison's Beloved, Primo Levi
Part III	Holding the Tension between Affirming and Withstanding
Chapter 7	Kafka and Kundera: Two Voices from Prague	109
	Franz Kafka's Castle: The Calling and the Call
	Milan Kundera's Immortality: Deconstructing the Illusion of Personal Uniqueness
Chapter 8	The Harmonic, the Tragic, and the Grotesque	129
	Yeats, Auden, Neruda, Milosz
Chapter 9	The Scandal of the Particular	141
	Amichai, Levertov, Dillard
Chapter 10	The Shoah--Our Ultimate Confrontation	157
	Andre Schwarz-Bart's The Last of the Just
	Primo Levi, Nellie Sachs, and Paul Celan
	Conclusion: Confronting Death	187
	Hermeneutical Appendix: Toward a Poetics of Dialogue	209
	Notes	233

Editorial Reviews

Friedman (religious studies, philosophy, comparative literature, San Diego U.) explores the rich tapestry of our humanness as we strive to find meaning in our experiences, even in the midst of evil and death. He interprets many works, chiefly from the 19th and 20th centuries, from the standpoint of the discovery of human meaning in the here and now and its struggles with evil and the absurd. Authors discussed include Kafka, Auden, Dickinson, Neruda, Rilke, and Yeats. No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)

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