of his career but also, and more significantly, claiming that here she is providing 'for the first time, a stylistic analysis of one of the American theatre's most fascinating practitioners.' That she has this justification depends, partly at least, on the fact that his plays and productions have commonly been regarded as belonging largely, if not indeed exclusively, to the realm of the popular stage, whereas she seeks to draw them within the orbit of those revolutionary endeavours which in divers European countries sought to establish a new theatrical 'naturalism' both in play composition and in play presentation the avant-garde activities to be found in the work of the Moscow Art Theatre, the Danish Theatre Royal, the French Theatre Libre, and the German Freie Blihne. That her endeavour is indeed fully warranted is demonstrated by the fact that when, for example, the Russian company and its companion organizations visited the United States various critics stressed their belief that its prod uctions 'had nothing new to teach Broadway.' Still more significant is the fact that Stanislavski himself put the seal of his approval on the activities of the American directorplaywright by actually making him an honorary member of the Moscow troupe. No doubt labels in themselves are of little or minor consequence, and no doubt on occasion they can prove misleading: yet it is of importance that we should teach ourselves how properly to interpret and evaluate outstanding achievements such as those manifested by such men as Belasco, and here Mrs Marker's study must be regarded as indeed a most valuable and accomplished textbook, or guidebook, call it which we will (ALLARDYCE NICOLL)

The great war and modern memory

The decline of the west that we provide for you will be ultimate to give preference. This reading book is your chosen book to accompany you when in your free time, in your lonely. This kind of book can help you to heal the lonely and get or add the inspirations to be more inoperative. Yeah, book as the widow of the world can be very inspiring manners. As here, this book is also created by an inspiring author that can make influences of you to do more.

The decline of the West

The Fate of Art. Aesthetic Alienation from Kant to Derrida and Adorno

The Fictional Labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon.

"Henry Adams was one of the most brilliant historians produced by America…Generations of educators and historians are sure to find inspiration in this most remarkable autobiography yet produced in the new world."

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The Education of Henry Adams, an Autobiography

This thesis examines the Faust myth in post-war American fiction, giving special consideration to works of William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon.

I present these works, which are underrepresented in broader studies of the literary tradition of the myth, as substantial contributions to the latter, while demonstrating how their thematic and stylistic proximity can be explained through their use of the myth itself. I thereby meet two desiderata: a location of Gaddis’s and Pynchon’s Faustiana in specific currents of twentieth-century intellectual history and a qualitative comparison between both authors against the background of postmodern mythography.

Locating their works in the tradition of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Thomas Mann, I analyse how both authors employ the myth in order to satirise the underbelly of Western modernity. In turning the myth against the founding principles of America itself, they suggest that the vision of a New Eden has been a Faustian wager from the start. In doing so, they transform the image of the heretical soul-seller into that of a representative of the dominant forces of their time. Playfully demonising the reckless individualism, technicism, and voracious materialism of their contemporaries, they provide an astonishingly differentiated portrait of human self-aggrandisement that reverts into mechanisms of dehumanisation, a feat that is reflected in their manifest use of the works of Oswald Spengler, Max Weber, Eric Voegelin, Norman O. Brown, and Herbert Marcuse.

While Gaddis’s and Pynchon’s early novels remain a matter of negative theology in refraining from providing totalising suggestions as how to fare with the sold ‘soul’ of the West, I argue that these satirical disputes, via their use of apophaticism, indirection, and allusive complexity, convey a distinctly ethical message that speaks against the alleged nihilism and relativism of postmodern fiction.

Matthias Mosch

Papers

The Faust myth in William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon : postmodern negotiations of western modernity