This Exquisite Loneliness : What Loners, Outcasts, and the Misunderstood Can Teach Us about Creativity

Deming, Richard

ISBN 10: 059349251X / ISBN 13: 9780593492512

Editore: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023

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Zustand: Gut | Seiten: 336 | Sprache: Englisch | Produktart: Bücher | "Imbued with a deep sensitivity for its subjects, and a light touch of memoir that contends with Deming's own struggles with loneliness, THIS EXQUISITE LONELINESS is a singular meditation on the ways that loneliness pervades the human condition, as well as an assertion of the ways in which we might allow our own loneliness to fuel our creative fires. Loneliness is not a feeling to which we readily admit. It is stigmatized, freighted with shame and fear, easy to dismiss as mere emotional neediness. Poet, art critic, and literary theorist Richard Deming contends that to see loneliness this way is to misunderstand it. In THIS EXQUISITE LONELINESS, Deming turns an eye towards that unwelcome feeling, both in his own life and art, and in the lives and the work of six groundbreaking figures. From Melanie Klein's contributions to psychoanalysis and the seminal literature of Zora Neale Hurston to the inventive philosophical writings of Walter Benjamin, and from Walker Evans' photography of urban alienation and Egon Scheile's avant-garde paintings to the ethical underpinnings of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, Deming finds a common thread: loneliness served as fuel for an intense creative desire that forged some of the most original and innovative art and writing of the twentieth century. From the "cosmic loneliness" that permeated the life of Zora Neale Hurston to the profound detachment that dogged Rod Serling at the height of his fame, loneliness has long been a complex and slippery subject, as lush and fruitful as it is searingly painful"--.

Codice articolo 41353708/3

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: This Exquisite Loneliness : What Loners, Outcasts, and the Misunderstood Can Teach Us about Creativity
• Editore: Penguin Publishing Group
• Data di pubblicazione: 2023
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 059349251X
• ISBN 13: 9780593492512
• Rilegatura: Rilegato
• Condizione: Gut
• Cataloghi dei venditori:
  • Bücher

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

"...Rich and sensitive." —The Wall Street Journal

“Loneliness is everywhere these days. But this book will chase some of it away, and maybe replace it with connection.” —Patton Oswalt, Emmy and Grammy winning comic

A examination of the life and work of six brilliant minds of the twentieth century, intent on answering the question “What can be done not despite but because of loneliness?”

At an unprecedented rate, loneliness is moving around the globe—from self-isolating technology and political division to community decay and social fragmentation—and yet it is not a feeling to which we readily admit. It is stigmatized, freighted with shame and fear, and easy to dismiss as mere emotional neediness. But what if instead of shying away from loneliness, we embraced it as something we can learn from and as something that will draw us closer to one another?

In This Exquisite Loneliness, Richard Deming turns an eye toward that unwelcome feeling, both in his own experiences and the lives of six groundbreaking figures, to find the context of loneliness and to see what some people have done to navigate this profound sense of discomfort. Within the back stories to Melanie Klein’s contributions to psychoanalysis, Zora Neale Hurston’s literary and ethnographic writing, the philosophical essays of Walter Benjamin, Walker Evans’s photography of urban alienation, Egon Schiele’s revolutionary artwork and Rod Serling’s uncanny narratives in The Twilight Zone, Deming explores how loneliness has served as fuel for an intense creative desire that has forged some of the most original and innovative art and writing of the twentieth century.

This singular meditation on loneliness reveals how we might transform the pain of emotional isolation and become more connected to others and more at home with our often unquiet selves.

Informazioni sull'autore

Richard Deming is an award-winning poet and critic, whose work explores the intersections of literature, philosophy, and visual culture. He is the author of five books, including Day for Night and Art of the Ordinary. He teaches at Yale University, where he is the director of Creative Writing.