In The Progressive Poetics of Confusion in the French Enlightenment, John C. O'Neal draws largely on the etymological meaning of the word confusion as the action of mixing or blending in order to trace the development of this project which, he claims, aimed to reject dogmatic thinking in all of its forms and recognized the need to embrace complexity. Eighteenth-century thinkers used the notion of confusion in a progressive way to reorganize social classes, literary forms, metaphysical substances, scientific methods, and cultural categories such as taste and gender. In this new work, O'Neal explores some of the paradoxes of the Enlightenment's theories of knowledge. Each of the chapters in this book attempts to address the questions raised by the eighteenth century's particular approach to confusion as a paradoxical reorganizing principle for the period's progressive agenda. Perhaps the most paradoxical thinker of his times, Diderot occupies a central place in this study of confusion. Other authors include Marivaux, Crebillon, Voltaire, and Pinel, among others. Rousseau and Sade serve as counterexamples to this kind of enlightenment but ultimately do not so much oppose the period's poetics of confusion as they complement it. The final chapter on Sade combines contemporary discussions of politics, society, culture, philosophy, and science in an encyclopedic way that at once reflects the entire period's tendencies and establishes important differences between Sade's thinking and that of the mainstream philosophies. Ultimately, confusion serves, O'Neal argues, as an overarching positive notion for the Enlightenment and its progressive ideals.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN-13
9781611490244
eBay Product ID (ePID)
178185477
Product Key Features
Subject Area
Political Science
Author
John C. O'neal
Publication Name
The Progressive Poetics of Confusion in the French Enlightenment
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Publication Year
2011
Type
Textbook
Number of Pages
240 Pages
Dimensions
Item Height
238mm
Item Width
162mm
Item Weight
485g
Additional Product Features
Title_Author
John C. O'neal
Country/Region of Manufacture
United States
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