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existentialism
Existentialism
The Oxford Companion to American Literature
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1995
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© The Oxford Companion to American Literature 1995, originally published by Oxford University Press 1995. (Hide copyright information)
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Existentialism, European philosophic movement with various schools or attitudes of different eras, including the Christian concepts of Kierkegaard and Maritain, but affecting American literature primarily in terms of an atheistic view shared with or influenced by Sartre and Camus. Holding that there are no accepted bases to explain the mysteries of human existence and that the individual must develop his being free of society, existentialism contends that solitariness makes the right condition for freedom of choice. However, it also brings anguish to the individual as he recognizes the futility of attempting to treat the paradoxes of a meaningless universe and an absurd world and to achieve self‐mastery in an atmosphere of entire freedom. Such views and such a sense of metaphysical isolation in the consideration of the individual in the present moment are found in the fiction of Saul Bellow, Paul Bowles, Ralph Ellison, William Styron, and Richard Wright. Frequently using the monologue to show the protagonist's growing consciousness of the human condition, since thought rather than action is dominant in existential fiction, their novels deal with depersonalization, alienation from society and belief in divinity, and an individual search for identity.
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COLUMN: Existentialism the right way
News Wire article from: University Wire; 6/14/2005; ; 700+ words
; ...give you my biases. I tend to define existentialism more so according to Sartre, Camus...existentialists), and I also believe that existentialism is partially a reaction to the nihilistic...whilst sharing themes from naturalism. Existentialism is a world view that, in simplest...
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European Existentialism.(Review)
Magazine article from: The Review of Metaphysics; 12/1/1998; ; 700+ words
; ...LANGUILLI, Nino, ed. European Existentialism. New Brunswick, New Jersey...there is more distance from Existentialism as a movement in philosophy...the question about just what existentialism is. Langiulli writes an interesting...
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COLUMN: Learning all about existentialism
News Wire article from: University Wire; 6/8/2005; ; 700+ words
; ...give you my biases. I tend to define existentialism more so according to Sartre, Camus...existentialists), and I also believe that existentialism is partially a reaction to the nihilistic...whilst sharing themes from naturalism. Existentialism is a worldview that, in simplest...
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French existentialism and American popular culture, 1945-1948.
Magazine article from: The Historian; 1/1/1999; ; 700+ words
; ...1947 of Jean-Paul Sartre's lecture, "Existentialism is a Humanism" (1945), insured that the term existentialism would enter into the vocabulary of American thought and culture. Existentialism is notoriously difficult to define, especially...
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Choices and Conflicts: Essays on Literature and Existentialism.(Book review)
Magazine article from: The Modern Language Review; 4/1/2007; ; 700+ words
; ...Conflicts: Essays on Literature and Existentialism. By HANS VAN STRALEN. (New Comparative...s Dutch introduction to literary existentialism (Beschreven Keuzes (Leuven: Garant...the theoretical concepts of literary existentialism. The central section (Chapters 2...
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Existentialism and hypnotherapy
Magazine article from: Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy and Hypnosis; 3/1/2000; ; 700+ words
; This article describes existentialism and explains how hypnosis can...cognitive approaches. Also, existentialism is often associated with complicated...1993) have pointed out, existentialism clearly articulates the world...
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Existentialism and the return to religion
Magazine article from: Philosophy Today; 7/1/2000; ; 700+ words
; ...ethical humanism. Then came existentialism. Despite its religious beginnings in Kierkegaard and Buber, existentialism established itself in the twentieth...philosophy. As David Cooper puts it, existentialism "as defined by Sartre, made...
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Stranger in a strange land: the enduring American appeal of existentialism.
Magazine article from: Reason; 10/1/2003; ; 700+ words
; ...French figures most associated with existentialism in these United States: Jean-Paul...critic Walter Kaufmann said defined existentialism: "dread, despair, death, and...Hopkins) is that it explains why existentialism has proved so deeply appealing and...
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Exit no exit: whatever happened to existentialism?(Tuning Up)
Magazine article from: American Scholar; 3/22/2008; ; 700+ words
; In postwar New York, existentialism was sexy, debonair, chic...French Resistance, practicing existentialism was like fishing in a bathtub...sticks with the bathtub image. "Existentialism," he wrote, "means that...
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COLUMN: Existentialism: Philosophy of freedom
News Wire article from: University Wire; 3/6/2003; ; 700+ words
; ...will of God. This is exactly where existentialism enters the dialectical discourse...significance of human experience. Existentialism, through a firm distinction, rejects...self, one also chooses for others. Existentialism is not a mere doctrine, but an attitude...
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Existentialism
Dictionary entry from: Dictionary of American History
EXISTENTIALISM EXISTENTIALISM, a philosophical and literary movement identified largely with...Paul Sartre, gained influence after World War I. The roots of existentialism are varied, found in the work of the Danish religious thinker...
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existentialism
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
existentialism , any of several philosophic systems...the central theme of contemporary existentialism. Following him, Heidegger and Sartre...prominent exponent of a Christian existentialism was Gabriel Marcel , who developed...
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Existential Psychology
Encyclopedia entry from: Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology
...distinction exists between the concept of existentialism and existential phenomenology, even...present before and with him or her, existentialism does not confine itself to states...commonly referred to as the "Father of Existentialism." Kiekegaard stated, "I exist...
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Gabriel Marcel
Encyclopedia entry from: Encyclopedia of World Biography
...hope, and faith. His brand of existentialism was said to be largely unknown...Following the war his "Christian existentialism" aroused sharp contrasts between his work and the atheistic existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre. Marcel...
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Mary Burton Midgely
Encyclopedia entry from: Encyclopedia of World Biography
...philosophical understanding of human beings. Existentialism is especially guilty of this offense...Albert Camus, the leading exponents of existentialism in the 20th century, argued that...development with animals. For Midgely, existentialism is ultimately grounded on a false...
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