Joshua Landy | Stanford University (original) (raw)
Papers by Joshua Landy
Stanford University Press eBooks, Jan 21, 2009
Oxford University Press eBooks, Dec 21, 2017
This chapter presents the core challenge before Hamlet as that of achieving authenticity in the f... more This chapter presents the core challenge before Hamlet as that of achieving authenticity in the face of inner multiplicity. Authenticity—which this chapter will take to mean (1) acting on the (2) knowledge of (3) what one truly is, beneath one’s various masks and social roles—becomes a particularly pressing need under conditions of (early) modernity, when traditional forms of action-guidance are at least halfway off the table. But authenticity is highly problematic when the self that is discovered turns out to be multiple. Which self, exactly, should one be true to? Hamlet’s solution, this chapter suggests, is an “actor’s ethos,” in which each of his aspects is given its day in the sun, granted full commitment by means of what we now call “method acting.” That is what Hamlet learns from the players—and that too is what we stand to learn from Hamlet: not an idea but a method.
Poetics Today, Jun 1, 2012
If someone were to suggest that the texture of Proust's novel resembles nothing quite so much... more If someone were to suggest that the texture of Proust's novel resembles nothing quite so much as molasses, it would be difficult to dissent with any great conviction. The over-long book, with its over-long sentences, over-long paragraphs, over-long sections and over-long volumes, is as thick and viscous as treacle, and little more transparent; it expands not only in all directions but also, and especially, in every dimension , so that its excess is ultimately one of density rather than one of magnitude. And its sweetness, as one of its earliest tasters was quick to point out, is best sampled in very small doses. 'Reading cannot be sustained for more than five or six pages,' writes Jacques Normand; 'one can set down as a positive fact that there will never be a reader hardy enough to follow along for as much as a quarter of an hour, the nature of the author's sentences doing nothing to improve matters.' Forced to compose a report for the Fasquelle publishing house in 1912, the same Normand ends up reduced to exquisite despair. ‘After the seven hundred and twelve manuscript pages,’ he complains, ‘after infinite amounts of misery at being drowned in a sea of inscrutable developments and infinite amounts of maddening impatience at never returning to the surface – one has no notion, none, of what it’s all about.’
New Literary History, 2001
In his monumental novel, Marcel Proust sets himself an equally monumental task: to extract unity ... more In his monumental novel, Marcel Proust sets himself an equally monumental task: to extract unity from a Self which is not just multiple but, so to speak, doubly multiple.1 Bringing together two strands of philosophical-psychological inquiry, Proust suggests that each individual is fractured both synchronically, into a set of faculties or drives, and diachronically, into a series of distinct organizations and orientations of those faculties or drives, varying according to the phase of life (or even the time of day). He thus places his narrator, and indeed his reader, in a dual predicament.2 Not only do we change over time, he implies, so that it is difficult to pinpoint a common factor which would grant us the “personal identity” we seek (a term made popular by Locke, Hume, and their followers), but we cannot achieve unanimity within ourselves at any given moment. In fact, the synchronic multiplicity is even greater than Proust’s sources (from Plato and Augustine to the French moralistes) acknowledge, since on his model the diachronic becomes synchronic: our various incarnations do not simply replace one another but remain with us forever, in the background of our consciousness, forming a complex geological structure of several superposed strata. It would be a prodigious feat of escapology if Proust’s narrator, traditionally dubbed “Marcel,” were to emerge from the above constraints clutching intact a convincing version of selfhood. Like any such version, his has to satisfy two conditions, namely coherence (identity with oneself) and uniqueness (distinction from other individuals). Marcel, in other words, has to find an element which sets him apart from other human beings, but which, unlike for example his love for Gilberte, is permanent; or, conversely, an element which guarantees a continuity across time and which, unlike for example his need to breathe, is peculiar to him. For a very long time he despairs of ever satisfying the twofold requirement: “my life appeared to me,” he laments, “as something
Philosophy and Literature, 2012
Poetics Today, Mar 1, 2004
Philosophy and Literature, Apr 1, 2022
Some infamous memoirs have turned out to be chock-full of fibs. Should we care? Why not say—as ma... more Some infamous memoirs have turned out to be chock-full of fibs. Should we care? Why not say—as many have—that all autobiography is fiction, that accurate memory is impossible, that we start lying as soon as we start narrating, and that it doesn’t matter anyway, since made-up stories are just as good as true ones? Because, well, every part of that is misleading. First, we don’t misremember absolutely everything; second, we have other sources to draw on; third, story form affects only significance, not facts; fourth, fiction and nonfiction offer different affordances, benefits, and delights. And since we need both kinds of writing, we have to insist on honesty in memoir; we have to stop saying that everything is invention and that fibs don’t matter. If memoirs could never be trusted, who would still read them? In a world without truth, what exactly would we speak to power?
Philosophy and Literature, 2021
Are we the stories we tell about ourselves? Not entirely. We aren’t just a set of actions, experi... more Are we the stories we tell about ourselves? Not entirely. We aren’t just a set of actions, experiences, plans, and hopes; we are also a set of beliefs, traits, capacities, and attitudes, none of which is essentially narrative in nature. We are, in other words, as much our character as our life. And while story form can help unify a messy life, when it comes to a messy character, we’re going to need something like the form of a poem. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 35 is a perfect example. Its subject is a civil war in the soul, yet it subtly hints at a deeper-going unity of character—and even manages, somehow, to find bittersweet beauty in the ambivalence. Sonnet 35 thus serves as a formal model, pointing us in the direction of techniques we may borrow for ourselves as we seek to transfigure internal conflict by means of art.
Philosophy and Literature, 2011
Nineteenth-century French Studies, 2009
New Literary History, 2020
Philosophy and Literature, 2017
Philosophy and Literature, 2003
Philosophy and Literature, 2007
For those of us who are still in love with literature, it is hard to know quite which way to reac... more For those of us who are still in love with literature, it is hard to know quite which way to react to the recent spate of books rushing gallantly to its defense.1 Should we literary folk be flattered and grateful that philosophers are lining up to lend us new resources with which to justify our activities, or horrified that we ourselves have become constitu- tionally incapable of doing so? Should we join the defenders of serious and passionate literary criticism in celebrating its rebirth, or worry that, unbeknownst to themselves, they are singing what will turn out to have been its requiem? To change the metaphor slightly, are the well-meaning eulogists preventing literary criticism from throwing itself off the bridge, or just shedding helpless tears over a slowly closing sea? One thing, at least, seems certain: whether successfully or not, liter- ary criticism has indeed made every effort to commit suicide. (In their very different books, Frank B. Farrell and Mark William Roche both begin from this same point). If fewer undergraduates today are taking classes and majoring in English, French, Comparative Literature, et al.,
Choice Reviews Online, Feb 1, 2005
Critical Inquiry, Mar 1, 2011
Stanford University Press eBooks, Jan 21, 2009
Oxford University Press eBooks, Dec 21, 2017
This chapter presents the core challenge before Hamlet as that of achieving authenticity in the f... more This chapter presents the core challenge before Hamlet as that of achieving authenticity in the face of inner multiplicity. Authenticity—which this chapter will take to mean (1) acting on the (2) knowledge of (3) what one truly is, beneath one’s various masks and social roles—becomes a particularly pressing need under conditions of (early) modernity, when traditional forms of action-guidance are at least halfway off the table. But authenticity is highly problematic when the self that is discovered turns out to be multiple. Which self, exactly, should one be true to? Hamlet’s solution, this chapter suggests, is an “actor’s ethos,” in which each of his aspects is given its day in the sun, granted full commitment by means of what we now call “method acting.” That is what Hamlet learns from the players—and that too is what we stand to learn from Hamlet: not an idea but a method.
Poetics Today, Jun 1, 2012
If someone were to suggest that the texture of Proust's novel resembles nothing quite so much... more If someone were to suggest that the texture of Proust's novel resembles nothing quite so much as molasses, it would be difficult to dissent with any great conviction. The over-long book, with its over-long sentences, over-long paragraphs, over-long sections and over-long volumes, is as thick and viscous as treacle, and little more transparent; it expands not only in all directions but also, and especially, in every dimension , so that its excess is ultimately one of density rather than one of magnitude. And its sweetness, as one of its earliest tasters was quick to point out, is best sampled in very small doses. 'Reading cannot be sustained for more than five or six pages,' writes Jacques Normand; 'one can set down as a positive fact that there will never be a reader hardy enough to follow along for as much as a quarter of an hour, the nature of the author's sentences doing nothing to improve matters.' Forced to compose a report for the Fasquelle publishing house in 1912, the same Normand ends up reduced to exquisite despair. ‘After the seven hundred and twelve manuscript pages,’ he complains, ‘after infinite amounts of misery at being drowned in a sea of inscrutable developments and infinite amounts of maddening impatience at never returning to the surface – one has no notion, none, of what it’s all about.’
New Literary History, 2001
In his monumental novel, Marcel Proust sets himself an equally monumental task: to extract unity ... more In his monumental novel, Marcel Proust sets himself an equally monumental task: to extract unity from a Self which is not just multiple but, so to speak, doubly multiple.1 Bringing together two strands of philosophical-psychological inquiry, Proust suggests that each individual is fractured both synchronically, into a set of faculties or drives, and diachronically, into a series of distinct organizations and orientations of those faculties or drives, varying according to the phase of life (or even the time of day). He thus places his narrator, and indeed his reader, in a dual predicament.2 Not only do we change over time, he implies, so that it is difficult to pinpoint a common factor which would grant us the “personal identity” we seek (a term made popular by Locke, Hume, and their followers), but we cannot achieve unanimity within ourselves at any given moment. In fact, the synchronic multiplicity is even greater than Proust’s sources (from Plato and Augustine to the French moralistes) acknowledge, since on his model the diachronic becomes synchronic: our various incarnations do not simply replace one another but remain with us forever, in the background of our consciousness, forming a complex geological structure of several superposed strata. It would be a prodigious feat of escapology if Proust’s narrator, traditionally dubbed “Marcel,” were to emerge from the above constraints clutching intact a convincing version of selfhood. Like any such version, his has to satisfy two conditions, namely coherence (identity with oneself) and uniqueness (distinction from other individuals). Marcel, in other words, has to find an element which sets him apart from other human beings, but which, unlike for example his love for Gilberte, is permanent; or, conversely, an element which guarantees a continuity across time and which, unlike for example his need to breathe, is peculiar to him. For a very long time he despairs of ever satisfying the twofold requirement: “my life appeared to me,” he laments, “as something
Philosophy and Literature, 2012
Poetics Today, Mar 1, 2004
Philosophy and Literature, Apr 1, 2022
Some infamous memoirs have turned out to be chock-full of fibs. Should we care? Why not say—as ma... more Some infamous memoirs have turned out to be chock-full of fibs. Should we care? Why not say—as many have—that all autobiography is fiction, that accurate memory is impossible, that we start lying as soon as we start narrating, and that it doesn’t matter anyway, since made-up stories are just as good as true ones? Because, well, every part of that is misleading. First, we don’t misremember absolutely everything; second, we have other sources to draw on; third, story form affects only significance, not facts; fourth, fiction and nonfiction offer different affordances, benefits, and delights. And since we need both kinds of writing, we have to insist on honesty in memoir; we have to stop saying that everything is invention and that fibs don’t matter. If memoirs could never be trusted, who would still read them? In a world without truth, what exactly would we speak to power?
Philosophy and Literature, 2021
Are we the stories we tell about ourselves? Not entirely. We aren’t just a set of actions, experi... more Are we the stories we tell about ourselves? Not entirely. We aren’t just a set of actions, experiences, plans, and hopes; we are also a set of beliefs, traits, capacities, and attitudes, none of which is essentially narrative in nature. We are, in other words, as much our character as our life. And while story form can help unify a messy life, when it comes to a messy character, we’re going to need something like the form of a poem. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 35 is a perfect example. Its subject is a civil war in the soul, yet it subtly hints at a deeper-going unity of character—and even manages, somehow, to find bittersweet beauty in the ambivalence. Sonnet 35 thus serves as a formal model, pointing us in the direction of techniques we may borrow for ourselves as we seek to transfigure internal conflict by means of art.
Philosophy and Literature, 2011
Nineteenth-century French Studies, 2009
New Literary History, 2020
Philosophy and Literature, 2017
Philosophy and Literature, 2003
Philosophy and Literature, 2007
For those of us who are still in love with literature, it is hard to know quite which way to reac... more For those of us who are still in love with literature, it is hard to know quite which way to react to the recent spate of books rushing gallantly to its defense.1 Should we literary folk be flattered and grateful that philosophers are lining up to lend us new resources with which to justify our activities, or horrified that we ourselves have become constitu- tionally incapable of doing so? Should we join the defenders of serious and passionate literary criticism in celebrating its rebirth, or worry that, unbeknownst to themselves, they are singing what will turn out to have been its requiem? To change the metaphor slightly, are the well-meaning eulogists preventing literary criticism from throwing itself off the bridge, or just shedding helpless tears over a slowly closing sea? One thing, at least, seems certain: whether successfully or not, liter- ary criticism has indeed made every effort to commit suicide. (In their very different books, Frank B. Farrell and Mark William Roche both begin from this same point). If fewer undergraduates today are taking classes and majoring in English, French, Comparative Literature, et al.,
Choice Reviews Online, Feb 1, 2005
Critical Inquiry, Mar 1, 2011
diacritics, 2001
Review of Alexander Nehamas, "The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault"
Philosophy and Literature, 2007
Combined review of Why Does Literature Matter?, by Frank B. Farrell; Why Literature Matters In th... more Combined review of Why Does Literature Matter?, by Frank B. Farrell; Why Literature Matters In the Twenty-First Century, by Mark William Roche
Philosophy and Literature, 2003
[Review of "Nietzsche and Proust: A Comparative Study," by Duncan Large.] While knowing next to ... more [Review of "Nietzsche and Proust: A Comparative Study," by Duncan Large.]
While knowing next to nothing about Nietzsche, Proust reached a set of remarkably Nietzschean positions: he questioned the value of the will to truth, considered the self fractured and in need of aesthetic fashioning, prized individualism, and believed that each of us has a unique perspective, affecting how we parse (and evaluate) what we see. In his recent book Nietzsche and Proust, Duncan Large lays out this accidental kinship between two writers. Large, however, presents us with an excessively skeptical Proust, one who denies not just access to but the very existence of a fact of the matter, whether about the world or about the self; Large also presents us with an excessively incompetent Proust, one who tries (and fails) to fashion himself by means of his novel, rather than trying (successfully) to show us the self-fashioning of a fictional character. One is left wondering why, even today, cynicism is so often equated with clear-sightedness.
Poetics Today, 2005
Review of La pensée du roman (2003), by Thomas G. Pavel.
Philosophy and Literature, 2011
Review of Proust et le moi divisé (2006), by Edward Bizub.
Nineteenth Century French Studies, 1998
Review of Roger Pearson, "Unfolding Mallarme: The Development of a Poetic Art."
Philosophy and Literature, 2005
... roles merge into each other and showing the arbitrary nature of the divide between mother and... more ... roles merge into each other and showing the arbitrary nature of the divide between mother and prostitute, Utsav flouts the ... his programmatic introduction, Landy first explains what separates Proust's philosophical system from those of predecessors like Plato, David Hume, Arthur ...