Literature and Consolation - by Jürgen Pieters (Paperback)

About the Book

Provides a deeper understanding of the comforts of reading literature

Book Synopsis

By focusing on a number of significant moments in the interlocking histories of the book's two central concepts--literature and consolation--this study makes readers aware of the premises that underlie the assumption that literary writings can bring comfort. What is it in literary texts that provides this special experience? How does literature help us to understand what consolation means and the effects it can have on individual readers?
The intersecting ideas of literature and consolation in Homer, Dante, Shakespeare and Flaubert through to Roland Barthes, Denise Riley and Julian Barnes, guide today's readers on how literature provides examples, food for thought and good companionship in times of grief and pain. Taking its cue from the rich history of consolatory thinking, the book shows how writers from different times have explored the potential of their writing to offer solace. The result of these explorations, this book argues, has shaped the history of Western literature decisively.

From the Back Cover

Provides a deeper understanding of the comforts of reading literature By focusing on a number of significant moments in the interlocking histories of the book's two central concepts--literature and consolation--this study makes readers aware of the premises that underlie the assumption that literary writings can bring comfort. What is it in literary texts that provides this special experience? How does literature help us to understand what consolation means and the effects it can have on individual readers? The intersecting ideas of literature and consolation in Homer, Dante, Shakespeare and Flaubert through to Roland Barthes, Denise Riley and Julian Barnes, guide today's readers on how literature provides examples, food for thought and good companionship in times of grief and pain. Taking its cue from the rich history of consolatory thinking, the book shows how writers from different times have explored the potential of their writing to offer solace. The result of these explorations, this book argues, has shaped the history of Western literature decisively. Jürgen Pieters teaches Literary Theory at Ghent University, Belgium.

Review Quotes

In a year where many have needed the comfort reading fiction can bring, Pieters' exposition of the contemporary interest in bibliotherapy, which he grounds in detailed historical analysis from Homer to the present day, offers a warm and persuaive argument for the power of literary texts to console. [...] Pieters' book therefore constitutes an offer to the reader that might confirm their own hopes about the power of literature; a power that is all too often denied in the face of more easily provable forms of care.--Sophie Eager, Univeristy of London "Barthes Studies"

In his remarkably informed and sensitive study, Jürgen Pieters proposes an exceptional long-term perspective on the diverse uses of literature throughout centuries and this allows us to understand on a deeper level how and why contemporary literature can now claim what could be called a new consoling turn.--William Marx, Collège de France

About the Author

Jürgen Pieters teaches Literary Theory at Ghent University, Belgium. He is the author of Moments of Negotiation. The New Historicism of Stephen Greenblatt (Amsterdam University Press, 2001) and Speaking With the Dead: Explorations in Literature and History (Edinburgh University Press, 2005).