A History of Silence

Alain Corbin 지음

Polity 2018년 05월 29일 출간

작품소개

책소개

Silence is not simply the absence of noise. It is within us, in the inner citadel that great writers, thinkers, scholars and people of faith have cultivated over the centuries. It characterizes our most intimate and sacred spaces, from private bedrooms to grand cathedrals those vast reservoirs of silence. Philosophers and novelists have long sought solitude and inspiration in mountains and forests. Yet despite the centrality of silence to some of our most intense experiences, the transformations of the twentieth century have gradually diminished its value. Today, raucous urban spaces and a continual bombardment from different media pressure us into constant activity. We are losing a sense of our inner selves, a process that is changing the very nature of the individual. This book rediscovers the wonder of silence and, with this, a richer experience of life. With his predilection for the elusive, Corbin calls us to listen to another history.

목차

Acknowledgements Prelude Chapter 1. Silence and the intimacy of places Chapter 2. The silences of nature Chapter 3. The search for silence Chapter 4. The educations and disciplines of silence Chapter 5. Interlude: Joseph and Nazareth, or absolute silence Chapter 6. The speech of silence Chapter 7. The tactics of silence Chapter 8. From the silences of love to the silence of hate Chapter 9. Postlude: The tragedy of silence Notes

출판사 서평

"Alain Corbin is one of the most imaginative historians writing anywhere. His series of brilliant studies of the senses includes his “auditory landscape” of the nineteenth century. Here, the search for silence, its sounds and meanings. This is a gem, beautiful and thought-provoking." John Merriman, Charles Seymour Professor of History, Yale University"Alain Corbin is renowned for pushing historical writing into new areas. In A History of Silence he goes further still: not only into the history of an elusive and many-sided concept, but into its philosophy, theology and literature too." Robert Tombs, University of Cambridge "The book brims with ideas: on painting as “silent speech”; writing as the interruption of silence; the cruel silence of God; and the gravid silence of forests, dead-calm seas and snowfall.’" Times Higher Education "Terrific. ... a mischievous historian of the senses, Alain Corbin dares to devote these eloquent pages to silence, a subject hitherto neglected by his colleagues. Far more than the 'mere absence of noise,' his book makes us feel the thousand and one precious qualities of silence that have enchanted writers and poets over the centuries."Le Point

작가정보

저자(글) Alain Corbin

Alain Corbin is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Paris I, Sorbonne.