The Perils of Uglytown: Studies in Structural Misanthropology from Plato to Rembrandt

Harry Berger

Published by Fordham University Press 2015

The Perils of Uglytown

Studies in Structural Misanthropology from Plato to Rembrandt

Harry Berger

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823270590

Overview
Contents

About this book

The Perils of Uglytown develops a new concept, structural misanthropology, and traces its operation first in the dialogues of Plato and then in the work of humanists, playwrights, and painters of the Renaissance in Italy, England, and the Netherlands.

Author / Editor information

Berger Harry :

Harry Berger, Jr., is Professor Emeritus of Literature and Art History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His most recent books include Figures of a Changing World: Metaphor and the Emergence of Modern Culture and A Fury in the Words: Love and Embarrassment in Shakespeare’s Venice (both Fordham).

Harry Berger, Jr., is Professor Emeritus of Literature and Art History and a Fellow of Cowell College at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is the author of fourteen books, most recently Harrying: Skills of Offense in Shakespeare's Henriad (Fordham, 2016).

Reviews

—Seth L. Schein:
The Perils of Uglytown is a distillation of Harry Berger, Jr.’s intensive study of the Republic and other Platonic dialogues over several decades and makes an important contribution to understanding these texts and to the literary interpretation of the dialogues generally. Its highly original, provocative, and stimulating close reading of well-chosen passages is grounded in Berger’s understanding of the textuality of the Platonic dialogues.

—Dr. Stephen Greenblatt:
Somewhere in his innermost closet Harry Berger, Jr., must harbor the secret of perennial freshness. For decades now his vitally important work has conferred the power to see with new eyes familiar works of literature, philosophy, and art, as if their innermost meanings were being glimpsed for the first time.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
1. A Polar Model of Culture Change Introduction to Structural Misanthropology Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I. MISANTHROPOLOGY IN PLATO’S DIALOGUES
2. The Discourse of Pleonexia Thucydides and Plato on the Politics of Communication Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
3. Dying Angry The Wrath of Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
4. More Than a Talking Head Socrates and Kephalos in Republic 1 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	50
5. The Perils of Uglytown Structural Misanthropology in Plato’s Republic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
6. Adeimantus and Glaucon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
7. Four Virtues in the Republic: (1) Wisdom Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
8. Four Virtues in the Republic: (2) Courage, The Well-Born Lye Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
9. Four Virtues in the Republic: (3) Temperance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	180
10. Four Virtues in the Republic: (4) Justice Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	192
11. Apprehension in the Timaeus Plato’s Nervous Narrator Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	204
PART II. MISANTHROPOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN CULTURE
12. Cybernetic Alienation Prosthetic Strategies in Alberti, Leonardo, Castiglione, and Machiavelli Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
13. Collecting Body Parts in Leonardo’s Cave Vasari’s Lives and the Erotics of Obscene Connoisseurship Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	232
14. Prospero’s Humiliation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	252
15. The Drama of Competitive Posing Portrait Plots in Hals and Rembrandt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	269
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	309

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Pages
- Main content: 336
Keywords: misanthropology; logography; safemindedness; narrativity; apprehension; cybernetic; alienation; portraits; posing; plots; wisdom; Courage; temperance; Justice; Prosthetic strategies; Cybernetic alienation; Competitive posing

eBook

Published: July 1, 2015
ISBN: 9780823270590