{"title":"Ivan Ilych and Autobiographical Despair","authors":"C. Cowley","doi":"10.1353/phl.2021.0013","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan Ilych, the middle-aged Ivan is dying. During this process, he comes to recognize that his life has been self-absorbed and trivial; such a recognition is, however, the first step on the path to a Christian-style self-abnegation and redemption. So runs the traditional interpretation. Against this, I argue that Ivan's perception and deliberation were distorted by \"autobiographical despair\": the tendency to downplay the genuine meanings of one's life, meanings that were also central to the dying person's identity. I argue that autobiographical despair is much more dangerous than the more familiar prospective despair.","PeriodicalId":51912,"journal":{"name":"PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2021-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/phl.2021.0013","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.2021.0013","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"N/A","JCRName":"LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:In Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan Ilych, the middle-aged Ivan is dying. During this process, he comes to recognize that his life has been self-absorbed and trivial; such a recognition is, however, the first step on the path to a Christian-style self-abnegation and redemption. So runs the traditional interpretation. Against this, I argue that Ivan's perception and deliberation were distorted by "autobiographical despair": the tendency to downplay the genuine meanings of one's life, meanings that were also central to the dying person's identity. I argue that autobiographical despair is much more dangerous than the more familiar prospective despair.
期刊介绍：
For more than a quarter century, Philosophy and Literature has explored the dialogue between literary and philosophical studies. The journal offers a constant source of fresh, stimulating ideas in the aesthetics of literature, theory of criticism, philosophical interpretation of literature, and literary treatment of philosophy. Philosophy and Literature challenges the cant and pretensions of academic priesthoods by publishing an assortment of lively, wide-ranging essays, notes, and reviews that are written in clear, jargon-free prose. In his regular column, editor Denis Dutton targets the fashions and inanities of contemporary intellectual life.
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