The Particulars of Rapture

"At least since his startlingly original, philosophically astute Act and Quality, Altieri has been recognized as an American theorist of the first order. Any reader of Particulars of Rapture will see why, in the care and finesse of his argument. Its enterprise too is worthy of him, since he puts forth an argument largely original within the philosophical as well as the literary-critical literature. . . . Anyone who cares about the philosophical understanding of the affects should, I urge, read The Particulars of Rapture. Anyone who cares about the role of affects as we encounter artworks should include the books to be read."—Eric Rothstein, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Contemporary Literature, v. 46 no. 1, Spring 2005
"Charles Altieri is one of our greatest analysts of modernism. In his previous books he has emphasized modernist writing's cognitive and ethical aims. Now, in The Particulars of Rapture, he turns his attention to art in general, and to art's expression of intense emotions. The result is a book of ecstatic theorizing about poetry, painting, and fiction. As rapturous as it is rigorously philosophical, this work is Altieri's best ever and deserves to be widely read."—Robert L. Caserio, Head, Department of English, The Pennsylvania State University and author of The Novel in England 1900-1950: History and Theory
"In challenging a sharp dichotomy between cognition and 'mere' feeling with an unprecedentedly rich and careful phenomenology of affects and their roles in our lives, Charles Altieri makes manifest how we can and do become deeply engaged in the enterprises of art as open explorations of possible modes of selfhood. It is faithful to Altieri's argument to say that I found myself absorbed in it—caught up in sharing in his own exemplary trajectories of understanding, feeling, and imagination."—Richard Eldridge, author of On Moral Personhood and The Persistence of Romanticism
"The Particulars of Rapture lays the groundwork for thinking in truly complex ways about the emotions. Charles Altieri begins by clarifying the relations among feelings, moods, emotions and passions and goes on to evaluate theories of the emotions in a range of disciplines—all the while refusing any simple antinomies between emotion and reason or affect and cognition. He gives close attention to the details of emotional experiences within, and in response to, works of art and literature and shows the passions as an ever-emergent resource of identity. If understanding the emotions, rather than simply undergoing them, can make us happy, this book will bring happiness to many readers."—Susan Stewart, University of Pennsylvania