Current philosophical discussions of self-deception remain steeped in disagreement and controversy. In The Self-Deceiving Muse, Alan Singer proposes a radical revision of our commonplace understanding of self-deception. Singer asserts that self-deception, far from being irrational, is critical to our capacity to be acute &"noticers&" of our experience. The book demonstrates how self-deception can be both a resource for rational activity generally and, more specifically, a prompt to aesthetic innovation. It thereby provides new insights into the ways in which our imaginative powers bear on art and life. The implications&—philosophical, aesthetic, and ethical&—of such a proposition indicate the broadly interdisciplinary thrust of this work, which incorporates &"readings&" of novels, paintings, films, and video art.

"Focuses on the phenomenon of self-deception, and proposes a radical revision of our commonplace understanding of it as a token of irrationality. Argues that self-deception can illuminate the rationalistic functions of character"--Provided by publisher.

"This work significantly revises the history of literary tragedy. The first half examines the classical background regarding theories of tragedy - philosophical, theological, and literary. The second half investigates tragedy as it appears in various works of Chaucer. A pivotal central chapter demonstrates the previously missing link between Senecan and Chaucerian tragedy. Scholars of drama, especially Renaissance drama, will find this study indispensable, since it presents a challenge to the entrenched theories of the discovery of Senecan tragedy by Renaissance playwrights. It also argues that Boethius is explicitly in dialogue with the late Roman tradition, specifically Seneca, documenting a direct line of influence from Seneca's Latin plays, through the Consolation of Boethius, to de Meun, Boccaccio and Chaucer. It contributes a corrective to a persistent blind spot in medievalist criticism that would deny the integration of classical secular influences into medieval Christian thought." -- From publishers website.

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Far from being a forerunner of Weimar Classicism or an addendum to the Enlightenment, the Sturm und Drang is best seen as part of an autonomous culture of impatience--as literature in which Germans, frustrated with their fragmented land, simulated a sense of power and effectiveness that political realities did not afford. This impatience drove not only authors and the characters they created; it also drew in German audiences and readers ready to partake vicariously in national sentiments that they otherwise could not have experienced. Alan Leidner sees Lavater's work as a model for dealing with a limiting culture, Goethe's Werther as a subtly arrogant figure, the drama of the Kraftmensch as a literature legitimizing the violence of its protagonists, the famous split in the Urfaust as the result of Goethe's resistance to the impatience that led many writers to fabricate a German nation that did not exist, and Schiller's Die Rauber as a liberating ritual that allowed German audiences to enjoy temporary feelings of national community. He concludes his study with an analysis of J. M. R. Lenz, whose texts recoil unequivocally in the face of the impatient muse.