Luke Fischer - Böcker

Written in three weeks of creative inspiration, Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus (1923) is well known for its enigmatic power and lyrical intensity. The essays in this volume forge a new path in illuminating the philosophical significance of this late masterpiece. Contributions illustrate the unique character and importance of the Sonnets, their philosophical import, as well as their significant connections to the Duino Elegies (completed in the same period). The volume features eight essays by philosophers, literary critics, and Rilke scholars, which approach a number of the central themes and motifs of the Sonnets as well as the significance of their formal and technical qualities. An introductory essay (co-authored by the editors) situates the book in the context of philosophical poetics, the reception of Rilke as a philosophical poet, and the place of the Sonnets in Rilke's oeuvre. Above all, this volume's premise is that an interdisciplinary approach to poetry and, more specifically, to Rilke's Sonnets, can facilitate crucial insights with the potential to expand the horizons of philosophy and criticism. Essays elucidate the relevance of the Sonnets to such wide-ranging topics as phenomenology and existentialism, hermeneutics and philosophy of language, philosophy of mythology, metaphysics, Modernist aesthetics, feminism, ecocriticism, animal ethics, and the philosophy of technology.

Written in three weeks of creative inspiration, Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus (1923) is well known for its enigmatic power and lyrical intensity. The essays in this volume forge a new path in illuminating the philosophical significance of this late masterpiece. Contributions illustrate the unique character and importance of the Sonnets, their philosophical import, as well as their significant connections to the Duino Elegies (completed in the same period). The volume features eight essays by philosophers, literary critics, and Rilke scholars, which approach a number of the central themes and motifs of the Sonnets as well as the significance of their formal and technical qualities. An introductory essay (co-authored by the editors) situates the book in the context of philosophical poetics, the reception of Rilke as a philosophical poet, and the place of the Sonnets in Rilke's oeuvre. Above all, this volume's premise is that an interdisciplinary approach to poetry and, more specifically, to Rilke's Sonnets, can facilitate crucial insights with the potential to expand the horizons of philosophy and criticism. Essays elucidate the relevance of the Sonnets to such wide-ranging topics as phenomenology and existentialism, hermeneutics and philosophy of language, philosophy of mythology, metaphysics, Modernist aesthetics, feminism, ecocriticism, animal ethics, and the philosophy of technology.

Innovatively combining philosophical inquiry and aphoristic writing, this study presents a bold new interpretation of philosophical poetics. Exploring fragments, both thematically and formally, Luke Fischer situates the form as uniquely positioned between philosophy and poetry.Like poetry, fragments condense insights into few words, employ striking metaphors that draw intuitive connections, and make space for creative interpretation. Contrasting with the logical linearity of much philosophy, fragments disclose rather than prove, intimate more than argue, suggest a whole without elaborating a system, and emphasize the intuitive act of thinking. Fischer readjusts our understanding of philosophical ideas as they originate in moments of illumination, and reveals the fragment as philosophy in process. In a collection of original fragments and an exploratory essay, Fischer sheds light on the relation between poetry and philosophy, aesthetics and society, art and the environment, and discusses seminal practitioners of the fragmentary form, including Novalis, F. Schlegel, Nietzsche and Heraclitus. Philosophical Fragments as the Poetry of Thinking makes an engaging, nonlinear case for the possibility and significance of a poetic transmutation of philosophy.

Innovatively combining philosophical inquiry and aphoristic writing, this study presents a bold new interpretation of philosophical poetics. Exploring fragments, both thematically and formally, Luke Fischer situates the form as uniquely positioned between philosophy and poetry.Like poetry, fragments condense insights into few words, employ striking metaphors that draw intuitive connections, and make space for creative interpretation. Contrasting with the logical linearity of much philosophy, fragments disclose rather than prove, intimate more than argue, suggest a whole without elaborating a system, and emphasize the intuitive act of thinking. Fischer readjusts our understanding of philosophical ideas as they originate in moments of illumination, and reveals the fragment as philosophy in process. In a collection of original fragments and an exploratory essay, Fischer sheds light on the relation between poetry and philosophy, aesthetics and society, art and the environment, and discusses seminal practitioners of the fragmentary form, including Novalis, F. Schlegel, Nietzsche and Heraclitus. Philosophical Fragments as the Poetry of Thinking makes an engaging, nonlinear case for the possibility and significance of a poetic transmutation of philosophy.

Pioneering essays that demonstrate the significance of the seasons for philosophy, environmental thought, anthropology, cultural studies, aesthetics, poetics, and literary criticism.Although the seasons have been a perennial theme in literature and art, their significance for philosophy and environmental theory has remained largely unexplored. This pioneering book demonstrates the ways in which inquiry into the seasons reveals new and illuminating perspectives for philosophy, environmental thought, anthropology, cultural studies, aesthetics, poetics, and literary criticism. The Seasons opens up new avenues for research in these fields and provides a valuable resource for teachers and students of the environmental humanities. The innovative essays herein address a wide range of seasonal cultures and geographies, from the traditional Western model of the four seasons––spring, summer, fall, and winter––to the Indigenous seasons of Australia and the Arctic. Exemplifying the crucial importance of interdisciplinary research, The Seasons makes a compelling case for the relevance of the seasons to our daily lives, scientific understanding, diverse cultural practices, and politics.

Pioneering essays that demonstrate the significance of the seasons for philosophy, environmental thought, anthropology, cultural studies, aesthetics, poetics, and literary criticism.Although the seasons have been a perennial theme in literature and art, their significance for philosophy and environmental theory has remained largely unexplored. This pioneering book demonstrates the ways in which inquiry into the seasons reveals new and illuminating perspectives for philosophy, environmental thought, anthropology, cultural studies, aesthetics, poetics, and literary criticism. The Seasons opens up new avenues for research in these fields and provides a valuable resource for teachers and students of the environmental humanities. The innovative essays herein address a wide range of seasonal cultures and geographies, from the traditional Western model of the four seasons––spring, summer, fall, and winter––to the Indigenous seasons of Australia and the Arctic. Exemplifying the crucial importance of interdisciplinary research, The Seasons makes a compelling case for the relevance of the seasons to our daily lives, scientific understanding, diverse cultural practices, and politics.

The Poet as Phenomenologist: Rilke and the New Poems opens up new perspectives on the relation between Rilke’s poetry and phenomenological philosophy, illustrating the ways in which poetry can offer an exceptional response to the philosophical problem of dualism. Drawing on the work of Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, Luke Fischer makes a new contribution to the tradition of phenomenological poetics and expands the debate among Germanists concerning the phenomenological status of Rilke’s poetry, which has been severely limited to comparisons of Rilke and Husserl.Fischer explicates an implicit phenomenology of perception in Rilke’s writings from his middle period (1902-1910). He argues that Rilke cultivated an artistic perception that, in a philosophically significant manner, overcomes the opposition between the sensuous and the intelligible while simultaneously transcending the boundaries of philosophy. Fischer offers novel interpretations of central poems from Rilke’s Neue Gedichte (1907) and Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil (1908) and frames them as the ultimate articulation of Rilke’s non-dualistic vision. He thus demonstrates the continuity between Rilke and phenomenology while arguing that poetry, in this case, provides the most adequate response to a philosophical problem.

This book is a magical collection of seven bedtime stories for 6 to 9 year olds -- one story for each night of the week, each featuring one of the seven colours of the rainbow. The stories are all new, yet have a timeless, dreamy quality to them, which is perfect for sleepy night-time reading.The seven stories form a harmonious circle: the first story features a small girl wearing a dress as white as the stars, who discovers a casket of jewels in a forest of blue trees. In the last story, a pink butterfly flutters from an old woman's garden to a hut in the woods, where a girl in a white dress sleeps.In between are a host of other wonderful characters, including a red bird whose song inspires dreams, a boy with a golden flower, an astrologer who paints stars from his purple tower, fish that transport raindrop-jewels to an underwater sea cave, and a mother and baby possum who discover a mysterious green sanctuary.Parents and children alike will delight in the vivid imagery in these enchanting tales, which lead the imagination from the clear outlines of the waking world into the elusive realm of dreams.