41
"It's Just the Texture of the World I Live in": Wallace and the World
7
terms
4
notes
etiology
(en)
(noun) cause, origin / (noun) the cause of a disease or abnormal condition / (noun) a branch of knowledge concerned with causes / (noun) a branch of medical science concerned with the causes and origins of diseases
42
Wallace's etiology of his own biased perspective is neither cure nor excuse for its intransitiveness
on DFW's awareness of his cultural position and privilege
notable
6 years, 10 months ago
Wallace's etiology of his own biased perspective is neither cure nor excuse for its intransitiveness
on DFW's awareness of his cultural position and privilege
notable
6 years, 10 months ago
parallipsis
(en)
also spelled paralepsis and paralipsis; the rhetorical strategy of emphasizing a point by seeming to pass over it
42
on the one hand, it marks him out as what he believes himself to be, pinning him to the White American Male paradigm, while on the other hand, it actively and repeatedly repudiates that label, invoking a kind of paralliptical self-negation
on DFW's self-consciousness in Signifying Rappers
unknown
6 years, 10 months ago
on the one hand, it marks him out as what he believes himself to be, pinning him to the White American Male paradigm, while on the other hand, it actively and repeatedly repudiates that label, invoking a kind of paralliptical self-negation
on DFW's self-consciousness in Signifying Rappers
unknown
6 years, 10 months ago
bathos
(en)
(noun) a literary term coined by Alexander Pope to describe to describe amusingly failed attempts at sublimity (an effect of anticlimax created by an unintentional lapse in mood from the sublime to the trivial or ridiculous); adj is "bathetic"
43
his frames of reference zigzag wildly from bathos to profundity
on DFW
notable
6 years, 10 months ago
his frames of reference zigzag wildly from bathos to profundity
on DFW
notable
6 years, 10 months ago
ars gratia artis
(la)
art for art's sake
47
he invoked Updike's craftsmanship as the epitome of ars gratia artis, while also suggesting that Updike "had never had an unpublished thought."
DFW in Although of Course, p92
confirm
6 years, 10 months ago
he invoked Updike's craftsmanship as the epitome of ars gratia artis, while also suggesting that Updike "had never had an unpublished thought."
DFW in Although of Course, p92
confirm
6 years, 10 months ago
schizoaffective
(en)
a mental disorder in which a person experiences a combination of schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations or delusions, and mood disorder symptoms, such as depression or mania
47
this tension between veneration and excoriation, often expressed in the same breath, a kind of schizoaffective critical articulation, is a dominant motif in his engagement with recent cultural shifts
on the Updike quote in term 913
notable
6 years, 10 months ago
this tension between veneration and excoriation, often expressed in the same breath, a kind of schizoaffective critical articulation, is a dominant motif in his engagement with recent cultural shifts
on the Updike quote in term 913
notable
6 years, 10 months ago
48
While he tended to elide the "American" from his discussion of what it meant to be an American human being, Wallace was explicitly, exhaustingly conscious of writing from an American perspective, and repeatedly articulated his struggles with taking a perspective outside of his own. Lee Konstantinou comprehensively traces Wallace's engagement with media stimulation and the performative cosmopolitanism of a type of educated American, suggesting that Wallace's engagement with informational "discloses some of the most troubling aporia of [his] style. Wallace's inability to represent a genuine cosmopolitanism in ['The Suffering Channel'] is not simply an individual failure but is, for him, an indictment of the very 'view' that he understands himself to be inhabiting". The paralyzing consciousness of mediated perspective, then, positions Wallace as an uncomfortably but inescapably American author. Konstantinou points out, indeed that the critical tendency to read Wallace in light of his American-ness, even his most specifically local texts "[showcase] a longing for the international," but notes that this longing is unmet in "The Suffering Channel," trapped by its own self-focus. Konstantinou astutely notes that Wallace's internationalism is different from the globalism of De Lillo or Pynchon, and emerges from a desire to disrupt the myopic ethnocentricity of late-century America. [...]
citing "The World of David Foster Wallace" in Boundary 2, 40.3 (September 2013)
While he tended to elide the "American" from his discussion of what it meant to be an American human being, Wallace was explicitly, exhaustingly conscious of writing from an American perspective, and repeatedly articulated his struggles with taking a perspective outside of his own. Lee Konstantinou comprehensively traces Wallace's engagement with media stimulation and the performative cosmopolitanism of a type of educated American, suggesting that Wallace's engagement with informational "discloses some of the most troubling aporia of [his] style. Wallace's inability to represent a genuine cosmopolitanism in ['The Suffering Channel'] is not simply an individual failure but is, for him, an indictment of the very 'view' that he understands himself to be inhabiting". The paralyzing consciousness of mediated perspective, then, positions Wallace as an uncomfortably but inescapably American author. Konstantinou points out, indeed that the critical tendency to read Wallace in light of his American-ness, even his most specifically local texts "[showcase] a longing for the international," but notes that this longing is unmet in "The Suffering Channel," trapped by its own self-focus. Konstantinou astutely notes that Wallace's internationalism is different from the globalism of De Lillo or Pynchon, and emerges from a desire to disrupt the myopic ethnocentricity of late-century America. [...]
citing "The World of David Foster Wallace" in Boundary 2, 40.3 (September 2013)
anodyne
(en)
(noun) a painkilling drug or medicine
48
mirrors processes of adolescent self-definition, functioning as an anodyne of sorts to infantile narcisissm, refusing to look beyond the borders of its own importance
on DFW's relationship (i.e., where he places himself in the panthen) with other American postmodernist fiction writers
notable
6 years, 10 months ago
mirrors processes of adolescent self-definition, functioning as an anodyne of sorts to infantile narcisissm, refusing to look beyond the borders of its own importance
on DFW's relationship (i.e., where he places himself in the panthen) with other American postmodernist fiction writers
notable
6 years, 10 months ago
59
[...] "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature," explicitly invokes Rortian philosophy, taking its title from Rorty's 1979 book of the same name. [...]
referring to the Oblivion piece about a man whose mother had a terrifying face due to plastic surgery
[...] "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature," explicitly invokes Rortian philosophy, taking its title from Rorty's 1979 book of the same name. [...]
referring to the Oblivion piece about a man whose mother had a terrifying face due to plastic surgery
59
[...] "The Soul is Not a Smithy", in its invocation of Joyce's artistic credo, seems also to resist ideas of the capacity of literature to formulate and maintain a coherent identity. [...]
apparently the title is a reference to the end of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
[...] "The Soul is Not a Smithy", in its invocation of Joyce's artistic credo, seems also to resist ideas of the capacity of literature to formulate and maintain a coherent identity. [...]
apparently the title is a reference to the end of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
60
[...] While Wallace may also have been referring to Pynchon, to Tennyson, More, or Lytton, or indeed to all simultaneously, the echoes of Keats throughout the text strongly suggest "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" as a--if not the--title source for the novel.
from stanza ten of the poem: "I saw pale kings and princes too"
[...] While Wallace may also have been referring to Pynchon, to Tennyson, More, or Lytton, or indeed to all simultaneously, the echoes of Keats throughout the text strongly suggest "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" as a--if not the--title source for the novel.
from stanza ten of the poem: "I saw pale kings and princes too"
limn
(en)
(verb) depict or describe in painting or words; suffuse or highlight (something) with a bright color or light
62