{"product_id":"literature-of-pity","title":"Literature of Pity","description":"Pity represents a combination of fear, helplessness and overwhelming agitation. It is a term which suffuses our everyday lives; it is also a dangerous term hovering between approval of sympathy and disapproval of emotional wallowing (as in 'self-pity'). This book traces an entire history of pity, as an emotion and as an element in the arts, engaging as it does so with a wealth of theoretical ideas including Freud, Derrida, Levinas and others. It begins with an 'Introduction: Distinguishing Pity', followed by chapters on the Aristotelian framework; Buddhism and pity; the pieta in the Middle Ages and Renaissance; Shakespeare on pity; Milton's pitiless Christianity; pity and charity in the early novel; Blake's views on pity; the Victorian debate, from Austen to Dickens and George Eliot; Brecht and Chekhov on pity and self-pity; 'war, and the pity of war'; Jean Rhys and Stevie Smith; pity, immigration and the colony; and finally three contemporary texts by Michel Faber, Kazuo Ishiguro and Cormac McCarthy.Features* Original treatment of the concept of pity providing detailed textual criticism and speculative argument* Wide-ranging: running from ancient Greek theory to the present day* Covers a wide variety of texts, including fiction, poetry and drama* Engages with the most recent theoretical debates about literature and the emotions","brand":"Edinburgh University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54251824841048,"sku":"9780748639496","price":112.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780748639496_6e134dd5-ae29-422d-a733-eec27580523b.jpg?v=1768023938","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/literature-of-pity","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}