“Cloud’s red, earth feeling, sky that thinks”: John Banville’s Aesth/ethics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v22i1.3857Keywords:
Stevens, Nietzsche, Deleuze, Husserl, Intentionality, Metacognition, Eternal recurrence, Becoming, Aesthetic, Hope, The Blue Guitar, Long LankinAbstract
John Banville’s long career can of course conventionally be viewed as a linearity, but it would be better seen as a form of spiral. This spiral is the hermeneutic process and concomitantly the movements of eternal recurrence in the oeuvre. In accordance with Nietzsche’s concept, these recurrences are not to be construed as returns of the identical. Rather, this ethic and aesthetic dimension in Banville is explicated as an attunement to the overall force of becoming. In agreement with Wallace Stevens’ poetics, Banville’s aesthetic is seen primarily as process. Through the immediate access to metacognition and reflection in the intentional act, Banville, through his protagonists, maintains a sense of wonder as hope in a fictional world often permeated by loss, melancholy and despair. This fictional trait is argued to have been there since the debut up to Banville’s more recent creative work.
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