The Place of the “Aesthetic” in <em>Zuckerman Unbound:</em> Roth's Conversation with Kierkegaard

Abstract

Philip Roth's frequent references to other writers create links that expand themes of each novel. intertextual relationships are part of a larger history, which begins to be a universe itself within its own world.One of these worlds, which will be focus of this article, is established through Roth's conversation with Kierkegaard his novel Zuckerman Unbound (1981).1In his introduction to Crisis Life of an Actress and Other Essays on Drama Kierkegaard's translator, Stephen Crites, reminds us of meaning of word aesthetic ancient Greek, which will also be a useful starting point for us as we go deeper into Kierkegaard's and Roth's explorations of term. Aesthetic, in its most comprehensive sense, is derived from verb ... which means literally 'perceive,' 'apprehend by senses,' 'learn,' 'understand,' 'observe' (Kierkegaard, Crisis 21). definition guides us to see how, according to Kierkegaard, each novel we experience what is apprehended by senses and what is perceived most of time by characters so that this experience can be transferred to readers. In addition, novels have atmosphere, musicality, and rhythm, and this is why, Kierkegaard's reading of literature, all novels can be considered aesthetic. importance of such moods, perceptions, and constant observations will later explain why Kierkegaard defines some of his own writings as aesthetic- even if aesthetic his world has multiple significations that are still debated among Kierkegaard scholars today.2The idea of a larger world made by connections between authors and their works and works to which they allude can be linked to what Ross Posnock calls Roth's cosmopolitanism. Posnock explains this epithet when he writes that, as Greek for 'world citizen' [it] is rarely a neutral term and often pejorative because it usually involves a refusal to revere local or national authority and a desire to uphold multiple affiliations (6). In his view, is better understood an international context (3), and he points out: The main effort of [Philip Roth's Rude Truth] is to construct these frames of reference, using them as a resource for literary criticism of fiction, and making vivid Roth's creative engagement with a rich lineage of intellectual history (3). Posnock argues that this cosmopolitanism evades fixed identities (4), a point with which I would agree.Taking lead from Posnock, this essay considers overlapping frames of reference a careful reading of one connection, conversation that undertakes with Kierkegaard Zuckerman Unbound. In so doing, it will reveal the rich lineage of intellectual history carried forward by Kierkegaard and continued by Roth. One of main focuses of Kierkegaard's work is how singularity is created and how one can live with oneself by oneself.3 To achieve this purpose, according to Danish philosopher, one has to be free of a fixed mind, a state of being that seems to achieve via his very conversation with Kierkegaard.However, Roth's bounds can also be seen his books terms of what Pia Masiero, Philip and Zuckerman Books, calls a storyworld. Here she explores possibilities of reading that Roth's novels offer to readers. Consequently, this article focuses on this storyworld and pays particular attention to effect of reading on reader. This ambitious and ambivalent story, which is created both by readers and by Zuckerman, is also an world within itself.As Masiero describes playful relationship that has with Zuckerman, Roth projects onto his favorite alter ego burdens and pleasure of authorship; that is, of actual making of fictional worlds to be engaged and apprehended by an audience (11). Later, she explains that Zuckerman typically mirror[s] his being-crucially-an author whose work revolves around deft blurring of boundaries between what is imagined and what is real through a careful handling of order and presentation of events. …