Intertextual And Interdisciplinary Approaches To Cormac Mccarthy

This collection offers a fresh approach to the work of Cormac McCarthy, one of the most important contemporary American authors. Essays focus on his work across the genres and/or in constellation with other writers and artists, presenting not only a different "angle" on the work, but setting him within a broader literary and artistic context. Such an approach offers a view of McCarthy that is strikingly different to previous collections that have dealt with the work in an almost exclusively "single author" and/or "single genre" mode. McCarthy’s novels are increasingly regarded as amongst the most rich, the most complex, and the most insightful of all recent literary responses to prevailing conditions in both the USA and beyond, and this collection recognizes the intertextual and interdisciplinary nature of his work. Contributors draw back the curtain on some of McCarthy’s literary ancestors, revealing and analyzing some of the fiction’s key contemporary intertexts, and showing a complex and previously underestimated hinterland of influence. In addition, they look beyond the novel both to other genres in McCarthy’s oeuvre, and to the way these genres have influenced McCarthy’s writing.

This book is the first edited collection to explore the role of philosophy in the works of Cormac McCarthy, significantly expanding the scope of philosophical inquiry into McCarthy’s writings. There is a strong and growing interest amongst philosophers in the relevance of McCarthy’s writings to key debates in contemporary philosophy, for example, debates on trauma and violence, on the relationship between language and world, and the place of the subject within history, temporality, and borders. To this end, the contributors to this collection focus on how McCarthy’s writings speak to various philosophical themes, including violence, war, nature, history, materiality, and the environment. Emphasizing the form of McCarthy’s texts, the chapters attend to the myriad ways in which his language effects a philosophy of its own, beyond the thematic content of his narratives. Bringing together scholars in contemporary philosophy and McCarthy Studies, and informed by the release of the Cormac McCarthy Papers, the volume reflects on the theoretical relationship between philosophical thinking and literary form. This book will appeal to all scholars working in the rapidly-growing field of McCarthy Studies, Philosophy and Literature, and to philosophers working on a wide range of problems in ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, Philosophy of Nature, and Philosophy of Film across ancient, modern, and contemporary philosophy.

In the decades since his 1992 breakout novel, All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy has gained a reputation as one of the greatest contemporary American authors. Experimenting with genres such as the crime thriller, the post-apocalyptic novel, and the western, his work also engages with the aesthetics of cinema, and several of his novels have been adapted for the screen. While timely and relevant, his works use idiosyncratic language and contain intense, troubling portrayals of racism, sexism, and violence that can pose challenges for students. This volume offers strategies for guiding students through McCarthy's oeuvre, addressing all his novels as well as his published plays and screenplays. Part 1, "Materials," provides sources of biographical information and key scholarship on McCarthy. Essays in part 2, "Approaches," discuss subjects such as landscape and ecology, mythologies of the American West, film adaptations, and literary contexts and describe assignments that encourage students to write creatively and to examine their personal values.

Since the release of his first novel, The Orchard Keeper, in 1965, Cormac McCarthy’s characters, intricate plots, and sometimes forbidding settings have captivated the attention of countless readers while exploring deep philosophical problems, including that of human agency and free will. This multiauthor volume places the full range of his novels in historical, literary, and cultural contexts and shifts the focus of critical engagement to questions of determinism, fatalism, and free will. Essayists over the course of eleven chapters show how McCarthy’s protagonists and antagonists often confront grotesque realities and destinies, and find themselves prey to incessant subconscious and uncontrollable forces. In the process, these scholars reveal that McCarthy’s works arrive thoroughly tinctured with religious complexities, ambiguities of ancient and modern thinking, and profoundly splintered notions of morality, freedom, and ethics. Consequently, McCarthy’s philosophical depth, mastery of language, and sometimes shocking psychological analysis are brought into sharp focus for longtime readers. With new scholarship from eminent critics, an accessible style, and precise attention to the lesser-known works, Cormac McCarthy’s Violent Destinies re-introduces the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist’s work under the twin themes of fatalism and determinism.

This book argues that McCarthy’s works convey a profound moral vision, and use intertextuality, moral philosophy, and questions of genre to advance that vision. It focuses upon the ways in which McCarthy’s fiction is in ceaseless conversation with literary and philosophical tradition, examining McCarthy’s investment in influential thinkers from Marcus Aurelius to Hannah Arendt, and poets, playwrights, and novelists from Dante and Shakespeare to Fyodor Dostoevsky and Antonio Machado. The book shows how McCarthy’s fiction grapples with abiding moral and metaphysical issues: the nature and problem of evil; the idea of God or the transcendent; the credibility of heroism in the modern age; the question of moral choice and action; the possibility of faith, hope, love, and goodness; the meaning and limits of civilization; and the definition of what it is to be human. This study will appeal alike to readers, teachers, and scholars of Cormac McCarthy.

Cormac McCarthy both embodies and redefines the notion of the artist as outsider. His fiction draws on recognizable American themes and employs dense philosophical and theological subtexts, challenging readers by depicting the familiar as inscrutably foreign. The essays in this Companion offer a sophisticated yet concise introduction to McCarthy's difficult and provocative work. The contributors, an international team of McCarthy scholars, analyze some of the most well-known and commonly taught novels - Outer Dark, Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses and The Road - while providing detailed treatments of McCarthy's work in cinema, including the many adaptations of his novels to film. Designed for scholars, teachers and general readers, and complete with a chronology and bibliography for further reading, this Companion is an essential reference for anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of one of America's most celebrated living novelists.

Drawing on Cormac McCarthy's recently opened archive, as well as interviews with several of his collaborators, this book presents the first comprehensive overview of McCarthy's writing for film and theater, as well as film adaptations of his novels.

Novelist Cormac McCarthy’s brilliant and challenging work demands deep engagement from his readers. In Cormac McCarthy’s House, author, painter, photographer, and actor-director Peter Josyph draws on a wide range of experience to pose provocative, unexpected questions about McCarthy’s work, how it is achieved, and how it is interpreted. As a visual artist, Josyph wrestles with the challenge of rendering McCarthy’s former home in El Paso as a symbol of a great writer’s workshop. As an actor and filmmaker, he analyzes the high art of Tommy Lee Jones in The Sunset Limited and No Country for Old Men. Invoking the recent suicide of a troubled friend, he grapples with the issue of “our brother’s keeper” in The Crossing and The Sunset Limited. But for Josyph, reading the finest prose-poet of our day is a project into which he invites many voices, and his investigations include a talk with Mark Morrow about photographing McCarthy while he was writing Blood Meridian; an in-depth conversation with director Tom Cornford on the challenges of staging The Sunset Limited and The Stonemason; a walk through the streets, waterfronts, and hidden haunts of Suttree with McCarthy scholar and Knoxville resident Wesley Morgan; insights from the cast of The Gardener’s Son about a controversial scene in that film; actress Miriam Colon’s perspective on portraying the Dueña Alfonsa opposite Matt Damon in All the Pretty Horses; and a harsh critique of Josyph’s views on The Crossing by McCarthy scholar Marty Priola, which leads to a sometimes heated debate. Illustrated with thirty-one photographs, Josyph’s unconventional journeys into the genius of Cormac McCarthy form a new, highly personal way of appreciating literary greatness.