The Story of Joy: The Literary and Intellectual History of an Emotion

FAIN: FB-52306-06

Adam Stanley Potkay
College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA 23186-0002)

"The Story of Joy" will provide a literary and intellectual history of "joy" in the Western tradition, with particular emphasis on the early modern period and the "long eighteenth-century"(1660-1832). I contend that the Protestant Reformation ushered in an unprecedented concern with joy as a "fruit of the Spirit"(Galatians 5:22)and that the trajectory from Reformation to literary Romanticism may be understood as the ongoing dialectic between religious and naturalistic discourses of joy.

Associated Products

The Story of Joy from the Bible to Late Romanticism (Book)
Title: The Story of Joy from the Bible to Late Romanticism
Abstract: Joy is an experience of reunion or fulfillment, of desire at least temporarily laid to rest, of a good thing that comes to pass or seems sure to happen soon. In this wide-ranging and highly original book, Adam Potkay explores the concept of joy, distinguishing it from related concepts such as happiness and ecstasy. He goes on to trace the literary and intellectual history of joy in the Western tradition, from Aristotle, the Bible, and medieval troubadours through contemporary works, centering on British and German works from the Reformation through Romanticism.
Year: 2007
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9750521879118

Prizes

The Harry Levin Prize
Date: 4/1/2010
Organization: American Comparative Literature Association

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