As lively mock’d as ever: Plasticity and the aesthetic image of life

This dissertation contends with the treatment of the biological in literary representation, arguing that the biological lacunae particularly visible in critical practice are best redressed by a formal exploration of aesthetic images of life. Biology, as I will show, admits of contingency, spontaneity, and novelty at the level of its aesthetic representation in a manner entirely distinct from what might be gleaned from a critical practice focused exclusively on the annals of discursive history. I approach this dynamic as an isomorphism of symbolism and biology and argue that just as contemporary philosophy has, through the work of Catherine Malabou, traced the symbolization of the biological, aesthetic criticism should seek to trace the biologization of the symbolic, that is, should seek to trace the way biology imposes its presence as an ontological piece of representation. Working my way back from the prominent appearance of three specific tropes in naturalist texts, I demonstrate within this dynamic that the aesthetic image of life asserts its plasticity against an impossible transcendental alterity, an alterity too long taken for granted in critical practice.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Comparative Literature

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• Carr, Brandon

Contributors dc:contributor

• Blake, Nancy
• Michelson, Bruce
• Courtemanche, Eleanor
• Proulx, François

• Aesthetics
• Biology
• Hegel
• Malabou
• Plasticity
• Literature
• Structuralism

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2018 Brandon Carr

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101275

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/101275