Power to hurt
Subtitle: the virtues of alienation
By: William Monroe.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 243
Subjects: American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Alienation (Social psychology) in literature; Social isolation in literature; Boredom in literature; Violence in literature; Postmodernism (Literature) -- English-speaking countries; Literature and society -- English-speaking countries -- History -- 20th century; English literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism
Description: William Monroe addresses what William J. Bennett ignores in The Book of Virtues: How do readers use literature as "equipment for living"?

Tackling modernism and postmodernism, Monroe outlines "virtue criticism," an alternative to current theory. He focuses on works by T. S. Eliot, Vladimir Nabokov, and Donald Barthelme to demonstrate that these alienistic texts are not just filled with belligerence but are also endowed with virtues, such as trust and the promise of solidarity with the reader.

By considering these vital texts as responses to personal situations and institutional practices, Monroe brings literature back to the common reader and shows how it offers functional responses to the dysfunctional situations of modern life. Readers interested in literary criticism, American culture, and the relationship between ethics and literature will be fascinated by virtue criticism and Monroe's fresh look at the virtues and vices of alienation.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Strategies, performances, virtues; title: A performance paradigm; title: Reading, empathy, alienation; title: Virtue criticism as cultural criticism; title: Necessary troublemakers; title: "Heaven's graces" : gnostic strategies; title: "Sweetest things" : aesthetic strategies; title: "Nature's riches" : parabolic strategies; title: Reluctant performers; title: "Others but stewards" : T.S. Eliot's gnostic impulse; title: "Lords and owners" : Vladimir Nabokov's sequestered imagination; title: "The basest weed" : Donald Barthelme's parabolic fairy tale.