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On Sympathy
Sophie Ratcliffe
280 pages
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1 black-and-white halftone
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216x138mm
978-0-19-923987-0
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Hardback
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15 May 2008
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- Pursues the complex subject of sympathy from Shakespeare through Browning, Auden, and Beckett
- An intelligent, incisive, and daring literary argument grounded in close readings of seminal works
- Demonstrates subtly and persuasively the philosophical and linguistic difficulty of comprehending the pain of others
What happens when we engage with fictional characters? How do our imaginative engagements bear on our actions in the wider world? Moving between the literary and the philosophical, Sophie Ratcliffe considers the ways in which readers feel when they read, and how they understand ideas of feeling.
On Sympathy uses dramatic monologues based on The Tempest as its focus, and broaches questions about fictional belief, morality, and the dynamics between readers, writers, and fictional characters. The book challenges conventionally accepted ideas of literary identification and
sympathy, and asks why the idea of sympathy has been seen as so important to liberal humanist theories of literary value.
Individual chapters on Robert Browning, W. H. Auden, and Samuel Beckett, who all drew on Shakespeare's late play, offer new readings of some major works, while the book's epilogue tackles questions of contemporary sympathy. Ranging from the nineteenth century to the present day, this important new study sets out to clarify and challenge current assumptions about reading and sympathetic belief, shedding new light on the idea and ideal of sympathy, the workings of affect and allusion, and the ethics of reading.Readership: Students and scholars of nineteenth- and
twentieth-century poetry; those with an interest in literature and emotion
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Sophie Ratcliffe, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in English at Keble College, Oxford
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"...original approach to the dramatic monologue and an unusual perspective on The Tempest's extra-ordinary afterlife, as well as fine readings of its three main authors and their work." - Tom Walker The Cambridge Quarterly "[an] excellent work of literary criticism... Ratcliffe shows herself to be an attentive, subtle, often witty reader." - Daniel Karlin Times Literary Supplement
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Introduction
1: Understanding Sympathy and Sympathetic Understanding
2: Browning's Strangeness
3: W. H. Auden: 'as mirrors are lonely'
4: Samuel Beckett: 'humanity in ruins'
Epilogue
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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