Camus's The Plague: Philosophical Perspectives (OXFORD STUDIES IN PHIL AND LIT SERIES) PDF
Preview Camus's The Plague: Philosophical Perspectives (OXFORD STUDIES IN PHIL AND LIT SERIES)
Camus’s The Plague OXFORD STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE Richard Eldridge, Philosophy, Swarthmore College editorial board Anthony J. Cascardi, Comparative Literature, Romance, Languages, and Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley David Damrosch, Comparative Literature, Harvard University Moira Gatens, Philosophy, University of Sydney Garry Hagberg, Philosophy, Bard College Philip Kitcher, Philosophy, Columbia University Joshua Landy, French and Comparative Literature, Stanford University Toril Moi, Literature, Romance Studies, Philosophy, and Theater Studies, Duke University Martha C. Nussbaum, Philosophy and Law School, University of Chicago Bernard Rhie, English, Williams College David Wellbery, Germanic Studies, Comparative Literature, and Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago Paul Woodruff, Philosophy and Classics, University of Texas at Austin published in the series Jane Austen’s Emma: Philosophical Perspectives Edited by E. M. Dadlez Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji: Philosophical Perspectives Edited by James McMullen Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment: Philosophical Perspectives Edited by Robert E. Guay Joyce’s Ulysses: Philosophical Perspectives Edited by Philip Kitcher The Poetry of Emily Dickinson: Philosophical Perspectives Edited by Elisabeth Camp Proust’s In Search of Lost Time: Philosophical Perspectives Edited by Katherine Elkins Camus’s The Plague: Philosophical Perspectives Edited by Peg Brand Weiser Camus’s The Plague Philosophical Perspectives EDITED BY PEG BRAND WEISER Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2023 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Weiser, Peg Brand, author. Title: Camus’s The plague : philosophical perspectives / edited by Peg Brand Weiser. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023] | Series: Oxford studies in philosophy and literature | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022038837 (print) | LCCN 2022038838 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197599334 (paperback) | ISBN 9780197599327 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197599358 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Camus, Albert, 1913-1960. Peste. | Philosophy in literature. | Epidemics in literature. | LCGFT: Literary criticism. | Essays. Classification: LCC PQ2605 .A3734 P4394 2023 (print) | LCC PQ2605 .A3734 (ebook) | DDC 843/.914—dc23/eng/20220916 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022038837 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022038838 DOI: 10.1093/o so/ 9780197599327.001.0001 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Paperback printed by Marquis, Canada Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America Triumph of Death. From: Francesco Petrarca, “I Trionfi” (The Triumphs). Miniature. Neapolitan School, 1449–1460 Tempera and gold on parchment. Ms. It. 103 alfa W 925, Folio 30v Alfredo Dagli Orti / Art Resource, NY This volume is dedicated to the millions of lives lost from Covid- 19, to those who tried to save them, and to the loved ones left behind. Because I could not stop for Death— He kindly stopped for me— The Carriage held but just Ourselves— And Immortality. We slowly drove—H e knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility— We passed the School where Children strove At Recess— in the Ring— We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain— We passed the Setting Sun— Or rather— He passed us— The Dews drew quivering and Chill— For only Gossamer, my Gown— My Tippet— only Tulle— We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground— The Roof was scarcely visible — The Cornice— in the Ground— Since then— ‘tis Centuries—a nd yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses’ Heads Were toward Eternity— — Emily Dickinson (1830–1 886) Contents Series Editor’s Foreword ix Acknowledgments xiii Contributors xv Introduction: The Relevance of Camus’s The Plague 1 Peg Brand Weiser 1. T he Plague and the Present Moment 31 Steven G. Kellman 2. Present in Effacement: The Place of Women in Camus’s Plague and Ours 53 Jane E. Schultz 3. The Meaning of a Pandemic 77 Andrew Edgar 4. Grief and Human Connection in The Plague 103 Kathleen Higgins 5. Examining the Narrative Devolution of the Physician in Camus’s The Plague 127 Edward B. Weiser 6. Horror and Natural Evil in The Plague 147 Cynthia A. Freeland 7. “I Can’t Breathe”: Covid-1 9 and The Plague’s Tragedy of Political and Corporeal Suffocation 175 Margaret E. Gray 8. Modern Death, Decent Death, and Heroic Solidarity in The Plague 199 Peg Brand Weiser Index 225 Series Editor’s Foreword At least since Plato had Socrates criticize the poets and attempt to displace Homer as the authoritative articulator and transmitter of human experience and values, philosophy and literature have de- veloped as partly competing, partly complementary enterprises. Both literary writers and philosophers have frequently studied and commented on each other’s texts and ideas, sometimes with approval, sometimes with disapproval, in their efforts to become clearer about human life and about valuable commitments—m oral, artistic, political, epistemic, metaphysical, and religious, as may be. Plato’s texts themselves register the complexity and importance of these interactions in being dialogues in which both deductive argu- mentation and dramatic narration do central work in furthering a complex body of views. While these relations have been widely recognized, they have also frequently been ignored or misunderstood, as academic disciplines have gone their separate ways within their modern institutional settings. Philosophy has often turned to science or mathematics as providing models of knowledge; in doing so, it has often explicitly set itself against cultural entanglements and literary devices, rejecting, at least officially, the importance of plot, figuration, and imagery in favor of supposedly plain speech about the truth. Literary study has moved variously through formalism, structuralism, poststructur- alism, and cultural studies, among other movements, as modes of approach to a literary text. In doing so, it has understood literary texts as sample instances of images, structures, personal styles, or failures of consciousness, or it has seen the literary text as a largely fungible product, fundamentally shaped by wider pressures and patterns of consumption and expectation that affect and figure in
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