All 9 essays on this page, as well as the 7 that ***appear on the page “From the Underground” have now been coll
***
Note that, except for the first title, all essays on this page, as well as the 7 that appear
on the page “From the Underground”
have now been collected in
TRAGICAL HISTORICAL
Late Essays in Western Cultural History
from Boethius to Beckett
Downloadable at
_____________________________________________________
OPPOSITIONS
I
The Power of Nothing: The Limits of Non-Participation
in Act 1 Scene 1 of King Lear
(drafted August-September 2018)
Awaiting publication
A thorough revaluation of tragic developments in Act I scene 1 of 'King Lear' based on a closer reading of the scene than has ever been offered. The many problems with critical reception of this scene. In every sphere of commentary on this scene, the main point of Cordelia’s pretensions has been missed (pretensions forced upon her by her social inability at a certain level of performance)--namely, that there is an absolute limit to non-participation and that ‘nothing’, as an actual condition of existence, reserves a power that no one can pretend to revert to, let alone champion, or brave—as we see from the awful event it unleashes that is beyond the control of everyone.
II
Macbeth, Gulliver's Travels, and the Limits of "The Civilizing Process"
(drafted June-July 2018)
(view with link below)
https://issuu.com/johnomeara1797/docs/impactful_violence_and_subversive_s
Within the act of beholding violence lies a point of “stillness” that constitutes at once a problem from the moral point of view, as well as offering a solution to this problem. There is a problem inasmuch as, at this point of stillness, resistance to violence is paralyzed, while at the same time a moral sphere opens up as if in direct reaction to this. Silence emerges from this stillness as its own phenomenon, challenging a moral response in spite of the paralyzing effect. However, a culture of silence was far from being developed as an effective moral mainstay in the sphere of action either in Shakespeare’s day or in Swift’s, whether in the perpetration or beholding of violence.
III
Dr. Faustus
and Pascal’s Pensées
(drafted October 2020)
(view with link below)
https://issuu.com/johnomeara1797/docs/dr._20faustus_20and_20pascal
IV
Denis de Rougemont’s Undoing
of Phèdre as High Tragedy
(drafted October 2020)
(view with link below)
https://issuu.com/johnomeara1797/docs/de_20rougemont_s_20_20undoing
V
Denis de Rougemont,
Wagner,
and Nietzsche
(drafted December 2020/January 2021)
(view with link below)
https://issuu.com/johnomeara1797/docs/wagner_s_tristan_und_isolde
VI
Reading Hemingway
in The Myth of Sisyphus
(drafted October/November 2020)
(view with link below)
https://issuu.com/johnomeara1797/docs/reading_hemingway_in_the_myth_of_sisyphus
VII
Beyond Domination, Repression, and the Absurd:
The Last Pages of Eros and Civilization /
Jung and the Tragic Survival
(drafted November/December 2020)
(view with link below)
https://issuu.com/johnomeara1797/docs/eros_and_civilization_the_last_pages
VIII
Nietzsche and Emerson
(drafted January 2021)
(view with link below)
https://issuu.com/johnomeara1797/docs/nietzsche_and_emerson
IX
Re-claiming Goethe for Tragedy:
The Outstanding Case of Faust Part One
(drafted January 2021)
(view with link)