Harold Schweizer is Associate Professor and NEH Chair in the Humanities at Bucknell University. He edited The Poetry of Irving Feldman and edited, with Michael Payne, The Bucknell Lectures in Literary Theory (a twelve volume series).

"This book exhibits cumulatively the vast and deep implications of the notion of suffering. The author shows not only the various ways in which suffering resists analysis by conventional philosophical, scientific, and psychoanalytic categories but examines a broad array of literary endeavors to overcome that resistance. "What emerges from this examination is that suffering occupies a unique position in the universe of modern thought and letters: it is arguably the most private, and most primordial, experience. Its very nature is such that it cannot be communicated to others, except in the most compromised modes of expression: pictures, photographs, gestures, breathing, and the vast heritage of rationally ordered concepts. The author shows that what compromises all of these (especially conceptuality) is their status as language: they are always translations into a public medium of an intimate experience which is in many ways pre-linguistic. The language of translation (whichever of these modes it may be) always inflects the 'pure' experience with its own nature, always absorbs it as an intelligible element into its own falsifying structure." — M.A.R. Habib, Rutgers University

• Acknowledgments Introduction I. Suffering in Truth and Theory 1. To Give Suffering a Language Literature and MedicineArthur Kleinman's Case of the Little Girl2. Coverings/Apertures: The Invisibility of Suffering Barthes on PhotographyThe Newsweek Cover of May 10, 1993P. J. Griffiths' Photograph3. Suffering as Metaphor Nietzsche's Remedy of ArtFreud's Narrative CureII. Tragic Suffering 4. Job or the Meaninglessness of Suffering Job's SilenceJob SpeakingGod SpeakingJob's Restitution5. Antigone or the Secrecy of Suffering Antigone's SufferingKierkegaard's AntigonePhilippe Lacoue-Labarthe's AntigoneAntigone's Suicide6. Lear or the Causelessness of Suffering Suffering LoveIII. Suffering and the Remedy of Art 7. Matthew Arnold: The Modern Painful Modern ProblemsBeyond Tragedy8. Robinson Jeffers' Aesthetic of Pain NatureThe ShiningThe Unavailability of Tragedy9. Lyric Suffering in W. H. Auden and Irving Feldman Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts"Feldman's "Bystander at the Massacre"10. Paul Celan: Suffering in Translation Edward Hirsch's "Paul Celan..."Celan's GermanAtemwendeTranslating Celan11. The Failure of the Remedy of Art Sylvia Plath's ArielRobert Lowell's Day by Day12. The Matter and Spirit of Death Sharon Olds' The FatherTess Gallagher's Moon Crossing Bridge13. Suffering and Sainthood Annie Dillard's Holy the Firm14. The Remedy of Writing Raymond Carver's "Blackbird Pie"15. The Redemption of Remembering Denis Donoghue's WarrenpointAfterword Index

Harold Schweizer is Associate Professor and NEH Chair in the Humanities at Bucknell University. He edited The Poetry of Irving Feldman and edited, with Michael Payne, The Bucknell Lectures in Literary Theory (a twelve volume series).

"This book exhibits cumulatively the vast and deep implications of the notion of suffering. The author shows not only the various ways in which suffering resists analysis by conventional philosophical, scientific, and psychoanalytic categories but examines a broad array of literary endeavors to overcome that resistance. "What emerges from this examination is that suffering occupies a unique position in the universe of modern thought and letters: it is arguably the most private, and most primordial, experience. Its very nature is such that it cannot be communicated to others, except in the most compromised modes of expression: pictures, photographs, gestures, breathing, and the vast heritage of rationally ordered concepts. The author shows that what compromises all of these (especially conceptuality) is their status as language: they are always translations into a public medium of an intimate experience which is in many ways pre-linguistic. The language of translation (whichever of these modes it may be) always inflects the 'pure' experience with its own nature, always absorbs it as an intelligible element into its own falsifying structure." — M.A.R. Habib, Rutgers University

• Acknowledgments Introduction I. Suffering in Truth and Theory 1. To Give Suffering a Language Literature and MedicineArthur Kleinman's Case of the Little Girl2. Coverings/Apertures: The Invisibility of Suffering Barthes on PhotographyThe Newsweek Cover of May 10, 1993P. J. Griffiths' Photograph3. Suffering as Metaphor Nietzsche's Remedy of ArtFreud's Narrative CureII. Tragic Suffering 4. Job or the Meaninglessness of Suffering Job's SilenceJob SpeakingGod SpeakingJob's Restitution5. Antigone or the Secrecy of Suffering Antigone's SufferingKierkegaard's AntigonePhilippe Lacoue-Labarthe's AntigoneAntigone's Suicide6. Lear or the Causelessness of Suffering Suffering LoveIII. Suffering and the Remedy of Art 7. Matthew Arnold: The Modern Painful Modern ProblemsBeyond Tragedy8. Robinson Jeffers' Aesthetic of Pain NatureThe ShiningThe Unavailability of Tragedy9. Lyric Suffering in W. H. Auden and Irving Feldman Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts"Feldman's "Bystander at the Massacre"10. Paul Celan: Suffering in Translation Edward Hirsch's "Paul Celan..."Celan's GermanAtemwendeTranslating Celan11. The Failure of the Remedy of Art Sylvia Plath's ArielRobert Lowell's Day by Day12. The Matter and Spirit of Death Sharon Olds' The FatherTess Gallagher's Moon Crossing Bridge13. Suffering and Sainthood Annie Dillard's Holy the Firm14. The Remedy of Writing Raymond Carver's "Blackbird Pie"15. The Redemption of Remembering Denis Donoghue's WarrenpointAfterword Index

Harold Schweizer is Associate Professor and NEH Chair in the Humanities at Bucknell University. He edited The Poetry of Irving Feldman and edited, with Michael Payne, The Bucknell Lectures in Literary Theory (a twelve volume series).

"This book exhibits cumulatively the vast and deep implications of the notion of suffering. The author shows not only the various ways in which suffering resists analysis by conventional philosophical, scientific, and psychoanalytic categories but examines a broad array of literary endeavors to overcome that resistance. "What emerges from this examination is that suffering occupies a unique position in the universe of modern thought and letters: it is arguably the most private, and most primordial, experience. Its very nature is such that it cannot be communicated to others, except in the most compromised modes of expression: pictures, photographs, gestures, breathing, and the vast heritage of rationally ordered concepts. The author shows that what compromises all of these (especially conceptuality) is their status as language: they are always translations into a public medium of an intimate experience which is in many ways pre-linguistic. The language of translation (whichever of these modes it may be) always inflects the 'pure' experience with its own nature, always absorbs it as an intelligible element into its own falsifying structure." — M.A.R. Habib, Rutgers University

• Acknowledgments Introduction I. Suffering in Truth and Theory 1. To Give Suffering a Language Literature and MedicineArthur Kleinman's Case of the Little Girl2. Coverings/Apertures: The Invisibility of Suffering Barthes on PhotographyThe Newsweek Cover of May 10, 1993P. J. Griffiths' Photograph3. Suffering as Metaphor Nietzsche's Remedy of ArtFreud's Narrative CureII. Tragic Suffering 4. Job or the Meaninglessness of Suffering Job's SilenceJob SpeakingGod SpeakingJob's Restitution5. Antigone or the Secrecy of Suffering Antigone's SufferingKierkegaard's AntigonePhilippe Lacoue-Labarthe's AntigoneAntigone's Suicide6. Lear or the Causelessness of Suffering Suffering LoveIII. Suffering and the Remedy of Art 7. Matthew Arnold: The Modern Painful Modern ProblemsBeyond Tragedy8. Robinson Jeffers' Aesthetic of Pain NatureThe ShiningThe Unavailability of Tragedy9. Lyric Suffering in W. H. Auden and Irving Feldman Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts"Feldman's "Bystander at the Massacre"10. Paul Celan: Suffering in Translation Edward Hirsch's "Paul Celan..."Celan's GermanAtemwendeTranslating Celan11. The Failure of the Remedy of Art Sylvia Plath's ArielRobert Lowell's Day by Day12. The Matter and Spirit of Death Sharon Olds' The FatherTess Gallagher's Moon Crossing Bridge13. Suffering and Sainthood Annie Dillard's Holy the Firm14. The Remedy of Writing Raymond Carver's "Blackbird Pie"15. The Redemption of Remembering Denis Donoghue's WarrenpointAfterword Index