The Puritan and the Cynic: Moralists and Theorists in French and American Letters

by Jefferson Humphries

Why do Americans, and so often, American writers, profess moral sentiments and yet write so little in the traditionally "moralistic" genres of maxim and fable? What is the relation between "moral" concerns and literary theory? Can any sort of morality survive the supposed nihilism of deconstruction? Jefferson Humphries undertakes a discussion of questions like these through a comparative reading of the ways in which moral issues surface in French...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195041801
• ISBN13: 9780195041804
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 124 Pages
• Weight: 0.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.8" x 8.9"