The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/A Visionary Hermeneutic Appropriation: Meditations on Hemingway’s Influence on Mailer: Difference between revisions
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Confined to the framework of this essay, I would propose that ''Advertisements for Myself'' is Mailer’s valiant form of confession and initiation into a visionary hermeneutic appropriation, which approaches a kind of literary conversion. It represents a writer’s self-transformation and regeneration as a genuine response to another writer’s thought and work. It does so, however, without any illusion, compromise, and least of all sentimentality. In no way such conversion implies loss of creative uniqueness and integrity, just the contrary. | Confined to the framework of this essay, I would propose that ''Advertisements for Myself'' is Mailer’s valiant form of confession and initiation into a visionary hermeneutic appropriation, which approaches a kind of literary conversion. It represents a writer’s self-transformation and regeneration as a genuine response to another writer’s thought and work. It does so, however, without any illusion, compromise, and least of all sentimentality. In no way such conversion implies loss of creative uniqueness and integrity, just the contrary. | ||
In relation to Bloom’s general theory of influence, I would relegate Mailer’s hermeneutic appropriation to the “state of exception,” as Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. Agamben defines the “state of exception” in reference to Saint Paul’s word “katarego,” roughly translated as “I deactivate” in his First Letter to the Corinthians. Agamben calls it “messianic katarg sis,” or messianic deactivation.{{sfn| | In relation to Bloom’s general theory of influence, I would relegate Mailer’s hermeneutic appropriation to the “state of exception,” as Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. Agamben defines the “state of exception” in reference to Saint Paul’s word “katarego,” roughly translated as “I deactivate” in his First Letter to the Corinthians. Agamben calls it “messianic katarg sis,” or messianic deactivation.{{sfn|Agamben|2005|p=104}} He further clarifies it as a “law that is simultaneously suspended and fulfilled.”{{sfn|Agamben|2005|p=104}} I find it useful to compare “messianic katarg sis” and visionary hermeneutic appropriation, because both concepts fully connote fidelity and flexibility. As Agamben points out, “In our tradition, a metaphysical concept, which takes as its prime focus a moment of foundation and origin, coexists with a messianic concept, which focuses on a moment of fulfillment.”{{sfn|Agamben|2005|p=103-4}} What sanctions such coexistence “is the idea that fulfillment is possible by retrieving and revoking the foundation, by coming to terms with it.”{{sfn|Agamben|2005|p=104}} | ||
'''VIII. MAILER’S VISIONARY INTERPRETIVE APPROPRIATION AND THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX: “THE STATE OF EXCEPTION”''' | '''VIII. MAILER’S VISIONARY INTERPRETIVE APPROPRIATION AND THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX: “THE STATE OF EXCEPTION”''' | ||