TY - BOOK AU - Powers,Scott M. TI - Confronting evil: the psychology of secularization in modern French literature T2 - Purdue studies in Romance literatures SN - 9781612494524 AV - PQ307.E87 P69 2016 U1 - 840.9/353 23 PY - 2016/// CY - West Lafayette, Indiana PB - Purdue University Press KW - French literature KW - 20th century KW - History and criticism KW - 21st century KW - Good and evil in literature KW - Ethics in literature KW - Secularization KW - France KW - LITERARY CRITICISM KW - European KW - French KW - bisacsh KW - fast KW - Das B�ose KW - gnd KW - Franz�osisch KW - Literatur KW - S�akularisierung KW - Electronic books KW - Criticism, interpretation, etc N1 - Includes bibliographical references and index; Cover -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter One: Writing against Theodicy: Secularization in Baudelaire's Poetry and Critical Essays -- Chapter Two: The Mourning of God and the Ironies of Secularization in Baudelaire's Le Spleen de Paris -- Chapter Three: Sublimation and Conversion in Zola and Huysmans -- Chapter Four: The Staging of Doubt: Zola and Huysmans on Lourdes -- Chapter Five: Religious and Secular Conversions: Transformations in C�eline's Medical Perspective on Evil -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Book -- About the Author N2 - Confronting Evil: The Psychology of Secularization in Modern French Literature holds that the concept of evil is central to the psychology of secularism. Drawing on notions of secularization as a phenomenon of ambivalence or dualism in which religion continues to exist alongside secularity in exerting influence on modern French thought, author Scott M. Powers enlists psychoanalytic theory on mourning and sublimation, the philosophical concept of the sublime, Charles Taylor's theory of religious and secular "cross-pressures," and William James's psychology of conversion to account for the survival of religious themes in Baudelaire, Zola, Huysmans, and C�line. For Powers, Baudelaire's prose poems, Zola's experimental novels, and Huysmans's and C�line's early narratives attempt to account for evil by redefining the traditionally religious concept along secular lines. However, when unmitigated by the mechanisms of irony and sublimation, secular confrontation with the dark and seemingly absurd dimension of man leads modern writers such as Huysmans and C�line, paradoxically, to embrace a religious or quasi-religious understanding of good and evil. In the end, Powers finds that how authors cope with the reality of suffering and human wickedness has a direct bearing on the ability to sustain a secular vision UR - https://libproxy.firstcity.edu.my:8443/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&AN=1228429 ER -