An utterly unique collection composed by the award-winning poet and
writer, a global anthology of pieces from lesser-known classics by
luminaries like Franz Kafka, Samuel R. Delany, and Gwendolyn Brooks
to up-and-coming writers that examine pathos and feeling, giving a
well-timed rehab to the word "pathetic" "Literature is pathetic."
So claims Eileen Myles in their provocative and robust introduction
to Pathetic Literature, a breathtaking mishmash of pieces ranging
from poems to theater scripts to prose to anything in between, all
exploring the so-called "pathetic" or awkwardly-felt moments and
revelations around which lives are both built and undone.Myles
first reclaimed the word for a seminar they taught at the
University of California San Diego in the early 2000s, rescuing it
from the derision into which it had slipped and restoring its
original meaning of inspiring emotion or feeling, from the Ancient
Greek rhetorical method pathos. Their identification of "pathetic"
as ripe for reinvention forms the need for this anthology, which
includes a hearty 106 contributors, encompassing canonical global
stars like Robert Walser, Jorge Luis Borges, Rumi, and Gwendolyn
Brooks, literary libertines like Dodie Bellamy, Samuel R. Delany,
and Bob Flanagan, as well as extraordinary writers on the rise,
including Nicole Wallace, Precious Okoyomon, and Will Farris.
Wrenching and discomfiting prose by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio,
Jack Halberstam, and Porochista Khakpour rubs shoulders with poems
by Natalie Diaz, Victoria Chang, Lucille Clifton, and Ariana
Reines, and butts up against fiction from Chester Himes, Djuna
Barnes, Chris Kraus, and Qiu Miaojin, among so many others,
including Myles's own opening salvo of their 1992 presidential
campaign. The result is a completely anomalous and uplifting
anthology that encourages a fresh political discourse on
literature, as well as supplying an essential compendium of pained,
awkward, queer, trans, gleeful, and ever-jarring ways to think
differently and live pathetically on a polarized and fearful
planet.
General
Imprint: |
Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
November 2023 |
Authors: |
Eileen Myles
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152mm (L x W) |
Pages: |
672 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8021-5716-4 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-8021-5716-5 |
Barcode: |
9780802157164 |
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