- Palo Alto, California, United States
Joshua Landy
Stanford University, Comparative Literature, Faculty Member
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,... 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.
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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... 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.’
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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... 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
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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... 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?
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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.... 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.
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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... 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.,
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This chapter presents Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy as modern fictions with ancient-skeptical ambitions. Whether in the affective domain (Flaubert) or in the cognitive (Beckett), the aim is to help the... more
This chapter presents Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy as modern fictions with ancient-skeptical ambitions. Whether in the affective domain (Flaubert) or in the cognitive (Beckett), the aim is to help the reader achieve a position of studied neutrality—ataraxia, époché—thanks not to an a priori decision but to the mutual cancellation of opposing tendencies. Understanding Flaubert and Beckett in this way allows us, first, to enrich our sense of what “catharsis” may involve; second, to see why the apparently odious Charles, in Madame Bovary, suddenly becomes a deeply touching figure; and third, to recognize the severe limitations of empathy-based moralist theories of fiction.
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This chapter outlines a response to the world's thoroughgoing arbitrariness, looking at the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé and the performances of Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin and Mallarmé set out to remedy the predicament by creating... more
This chapter outlines a response to the world's thoroughgoing arbitrariness, looking at the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé and the performances of Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin and Mallarmé set out to remedy the predicament by creating an alternative world, one which exists only in and through poetry, one where everything has to be exactly what and where it is. He also provided his readers with a formal model and the skills required for the creation of their own. In pointing to their own fictionality, the poems accustom their readers in the divided attitude required to believe in fictions they themselves have created. The chapter also notes that Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin's magic performances work in exactly the same way. It concludes that self-reflexivity at large, a central feature of literary modernism, may have emerged from this need to re-enchant the world.
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In Search of Lost Time contains plenty of standard-issue philosophy—reflections and questions about love, art, selfhood, and so on—but it’s still a novel. A novel, indeed, that takes years to read, challenges us with intricate sentences,... more
In Search of Lost Time contains plenty of standard-issue philosophy—reflections and questions about love, art, selfhood, and so on—but it’s still a novel. A novel, indeed, that takes years to read, challenges us with intricate sentences, and features a famously unreliable narrator. So why? Doesn’t that get in the way of the philosophizing? If Proust’s sole aim had been to communicate truths, wouldn’t a treatise have been a better choice? This chapter considers six potential beneficial effects of reading Proust, only one of which involves the transmission of propositional content. Specific formal moves, it suggests, prompt a particular kind of work, which leads in turn to a finite set of likely outcomes. And these outcomes are philosophical, too, as long as we remember that philosophy involves living well, not merely thinking straight. Beliefs remain extremely important; they just aren’t, even for philosophers, the only thing that should matter.
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[Proofs; please cite published version] In recent years, some prominent scholars have been making a surprising claim: examining literary texts for hidden depths is overblown, misguided, or indeed downright dangerous. Such examination,... more
[Proofs; please cite published version] In recent years, some prominent scholars have been making a surprising claim: examining literary texts for hidden depths is overblown, misguided, or indeed downright dangerous. Such examination, they’ve warned us, may lead to the loss of world Heidegger warned of (Gumbrecht), to the world-denying metaphysics Nietzsche warned of (Nehamas), or to the suspicious form of hermeneutics Ricoeur warned of (Best, Marcus, Moi). This paper seeks to suggest that, though the concerns are understandable, there’s ultimately nothing to worry about. The fact that Nietzsche himself happily used metaphors of surface and depth suggests that they are not, in fact, metaphysically fraught. The fact that it’s possible to appreciate surfaces at the same time as depths means that there’s no real danger of losing the world. And as for depth-talk turning us into suspicious hermeneuts, that would happen only if we made two fallacious assumptions: first, that all depths are meanings; second, that all hidden features are in a text by accident. But since plenty of authors hide things deliberately, and since what’s hidden often has nothing to do with propositional content, both assumptions are profoundly mistaken. Meanwhile, the surface/depth metaphor is the only thing that adequately captures the phenomenology of reading, especially when it comes to misdirection-based, hermetic, enigmatic, ironic, or satirical texts, where special activity on our part prompts a sudden leap to a radically different mode of understanding. And unlike its rivals, the surface/depth metaphor reflects a real asymmetry: depths explain surfaces, but not vice versa; surfaces are available without depths, but not the other way around. We need the metaphor, and we need to stay open to hidden depths as we read. As long as we don’t come in with terrible assumptions, nothing bad will happen to us, and plenty of good things will. It’s perfectly safe to go back in the water.
Research Interests: Comparative Literature, English Literature, Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, Friedrich Nietzsche, and 10 moreWittgenstein, Praise, Alexander Nehamas, New Literary History 2012, Reparative Reading, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Hermeneutics of Suspicion, Surface Reading, Toril Moi, and Symptomatic reading
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When we look at a painting or photograph, or read a poem or novel, how relevant are authorial intentions? That's a difficult question, and Walter Benn Michaels raises it brilliantly. Unlike Michaels, however, I don't think... more
When we look at a painting or photograph, or read a poem or novel, how relevant are authorial intentions? That's a difficult question, and Walter Benn Michaels raises it brilliantly. Unlike Michaels, however, I don't think its solution requires any fancy Anscombian footwork. Instead we only need three distinctions: (a) between generic intentions and specific intentions; (b) between empirical painters and postulated artists; and (c) between intention at time of conception and intention at time of display. With those distinctions in place, we can solve the problem—without saying there's no difference between me raising my hand to speak and my arm blowing upwards in the wind.
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How similar is Proust's Recherche to Dante's Commedia? Not very, as it turns out. In the first place, Proust's protagonist does not require an experience of ideal love as a precondition for conversion: Mlle de Saint-Loup is no... more
How similar is Proust's Recherche to Dante's Commedia? Not very, as it turns out. In the first place, Proust's protagonist does not require an experience of ideal love as a precondition for conversion: Mlle de Saint-Loup is no Beatrice. And in the second, what he produces is not an allegorized rendition of his creator's journey to authorship. Dante the pilgrim may well become Dante the writer, but Marcel does not become Proust, nor does he go on to write the Recherche; quite the contrary, the tantalizing and deliberately tempting set of similarities between author and narrator are an indication of the distance Proust has placed, like Elstir, between his life and his art.
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In Search of Lost Time contains plenty of standard-issue philosophy—reflections and questions about love, art, selfhood, and so on—but it’s still a novel. A novel, indeed, that takes years to read, challenges us with intricate sentences,... more
In Search of Lost Time contains plenty of standard-issue philosophy—reflections and questions about love, art, selfhood, and so on—but it’s still a novel. A novel, indeed, that takes years to read, challenges us with intricate sentences, and features a famously unreliable narrator. So why? Doesn’t that get in the way of the philosophizing? If Proust’s sole aim had been to communicate truths, wouldn’t a treatise have been a better choice? This chapter considers six potential beneficial effects of reading Proust, only one of which involves the transmission of propositional content. Specific formal moves, it suggests, prompt a particular kind of work, which leads in turn to a finite set of likely outcomes. And these outcomes are philosophical, too, as long as we remember that philosophy involves living well, not merely thinking straight. Beliefs remain extremely important; they just aren’t, even for philosophers, the only thing that should matter.
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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... 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?
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[Proofs; please cite published version.] This essay argues not just that literature can corrupt its readers—if literature can improve, it can also corrupt—but that some of that is our fault: by telling people to extract moral lessons from... more
[Proofs; please cite published version.] This essay argues not just that literature can corrupt its readers—if literature can improve, it can also corrupt—but that some of that is our fault: by telling people to extract moral lessons from fictions, we’ve set them up to be led astray by writers like Ayn Rand. A global attitude of message-mining sets readers up to be misled, confused, or complacent (because they “gave at the office”), as well as to reject some excellent books. Ironically, the best way to make sure that literature sometimes corrupts is to pretend that it always improves. So maybe we should be more careful about ascribing universal moral value to literature, whether via empathy, training, or propositional content. We should be equally wary of a second kind of aesthetic corruption, one that leads people to judge ideas true merely because they are delightful. Aesthetic Pollyannas subscribe to optimistic theories because they're beautiful (literature always improves! how lovely!); aesthetic Eeyores subscribe to pessimistic theories because they're sublime (literature always fails! how cool!). Our only hope of getting it right about literature depends on us all resisting aestheticized cognition. As we saw above, there may be real-world consequences if we don't.
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When we look at a painting or photograph, or read a poem or novel, how relevant are authorial intentions? That's a difficult question, and Walter Benn Michaels raises it brilliantly. Unlike Michaels, however, I don't think... more
When we look at a painting or photograph, or read a poem or novel, how relevant are authorial intentions? That's a difficult question, and Walter Benn Michaels raises it brilliantly. Unlike Michaels, however, I don't think its solution requires any fancy Anscombian footwork. Instead we only need three distinctions: (a) between generic intentions and specific intentions; (b) between empirical painters and postulated artists; and (c) between intention at time of conception and intention at time of display. With those distinctions in place, we can solve the problem—without saying there's no difference between me raising my hand to speak and my arm blowing upwards in the wind.
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ABSTRACT:What if we aren’t just the stories we tell about ourselves? What if our identity also involves something beyond any possible narrative—something, indeed, that needs protecting from narrative? If so, then it might seem as though a... more
ABSTRACT:What if we aren’t just the stories we tell about ourselves? What if our identity also involves something beyond any possible narrative—something, indeed, that needs protecting from narrative? If so, then it might seem as though a sequential account of our memories is beside the point; yet under some circumstances, surprisingly, a sequential account of our memories is precisely what protects us best. That’s arguably what The Periodic Table does for Primo Levi: while this stunningly unusual generic hybrid preserves the full force and magnitude of Levi’s experience in the camps, it also situates that experience on the same level as other events, thus preventing it from taking over completely. Rather than giving us, through content, the story of Levi’s life, its main function is to express, through form, the depths of his character, something that remains constant across all circumstances. It thus represents a heroic refusal on Levi’s part to let the Holocaust define him, to let others deprive him of his individuality, to let the diachronic dominate. It saved his self from stories. Did it also, perhaps, keep him alive a little longer?
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In Search of Lost Time contains plenty of standard-issue philosophy—reflections and questions about love, art, selfhood, and so on—but it’s still a novel. A novel, indeed, that takes years to read, challenges us with intricate sentences,... more
In Search of Lost Time contains plenty of standard-issue philosophy—reflections and questions about love, art, selfhood, and so on—but it’s still a novel. A novel, indeed, that takes years to read, challenges us with intricate sentences, and features a famously unreliable narrator. So why? Doesn’t that get in the way of the philosophizing? If Proust’s sole aim had been to communicate truths, wouldn’t a treatise have been a better choice?
This chapter considers six potential beneficial effects of reading Proust, only one of which involves the transmission of propositional content. Specific formal moves, it suggests, prompt a particular kind of work, which leads in turn to a finite set of likely outcomes. And these outcomes are philosophical too, as long as we remember that philosophy involves living well, not merely thinking straight. Beliefs remain extremely important; they just aren’t, even for philosophers, the only thing that should matter.
This chapter considers six potential beneficial effects of reading Proust, only one of which involves the transmission of propositional content. Specific formal moves, it suggests, prompt a particular kind of work, which leads in turn to a finite set of likely outcomes. And these outcomes are philosophical too, as long as we remember that philosophy involves living well, not merely thinking straight. Beliefs remain extremely important; they just aren’t, even for philosophers, the only thing that should matter.
Research Interests:
When we look at a painting or photograph, or read a poem or novel, how relevant are authorial intentions? That's a difficult question, and Walter Benn Michaels raises it brilliantly. Unlike Michaels, however, I don't think its solution... more
When we look at a painting or photograph, or read a poem or novel, how relevant are authorial intentions? That's a difficult question, and Walter Benn Michaels raises it brilliantly. Unlike Michaels, however, I don't think its solution requires any fancy Anscombian footwork. Instead we only need three distinctions: (a) between generic intentions and specific intentions; (b) between empirical painters and postulated artists; and (c) between intention at time of conception and intention at time of display. With those distinctions in place, we can solve the problem—without saying there's no difference between me raising my hand to speak and my arm blowing upwards in the wind.
Research Interests:
What if we aren't just the stories we tell about ourselves? What if our identity also involves something beyond any possible narrative-something, indeed, that needs protecting from narrative? If so, then it might seem as though a... more
What if we aren't just the stories we tell about ourselves? What if our identity also involves something beyond any possible narrative-something, indeed, that needs protecting from narrative? If so, then it might seem as though a sequential account of our memories is beside the point; yet under some circumstances, surprisingly, a sequential account of our memories is precisely what protects us best. That's arguably what The Periodic Table does for Primo Levi: while this stunningly unusual generic hybrid preserves the full force and magnitude of Levi's experience in the camps, it also situates that experience on the same level as other events, thus preventing it from taking over completely. Rather than giving us, through content, the story of Levi's life, its main function is to express, through form, the depths of his character, something that remains constant across all circumstances. It thus represents a heroic refusal on Levi's part to let the Holocaust define him, to let others deprive him of his individuality, to let the diachronic dominate. It saved his self from stories. Did it also, perhaps, keep him alive a little longer?
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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... 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?
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While it is often assumed that fictions must be informative or morally improving in order to be of any real benefit to us, certain texts defy this assumption by functioning as training grounds for the capacities: in engaging with them, we... more
While it is often assumed that fictions must be informative or morally improving in order to be of any real benefit to us, certain texts defy this assumption by functioning as training grounds for the capacities: in engaging with them, we stand to become not more knowledgeable or more virtuous but more skilled, whether at rational thinking, at maintaining necessary illusions, at achieving tranquility of mind, or even at religious faith. Instead of offering us propositional knowledge, these texts yield know-how; rather than attempting to instruct by means of their content, they hone capacities by means of their form; far from seducing with the promise of instantaneous transformation, they recognize, with Aristotle, that change is a matter of sustained and patient practice.
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Review of Alexander Nehamas, "The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault"
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Combined review of Why Does Literature Matter?, by Frank B. Farrell; Why Literature Matters In the Twenty-First Century, by Mark William Roche
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[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... 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.
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.
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Review of La pensée du roman (2003), by Thomas G. Pavel.
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Review of Proust et le moi divisé (2006), by Edward Bizub.
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Review of Roger Pearson, "Unfolding Mallarme: The Development of a Poetic Art."