La culture des idées

A series of essays that interrogate the nature of literary style, asserting that style blends an unteachable personal singularity with disciplined craft and shapes the value of ideas. The author examines subconscious processes of creation and the dissociation of thought, evaluates Stéphane Mallarmé and contemporary debates about decadence, and meditates on perennial pagan instincts and the moral dimensions of love. Throughout, paradox and irony puncture easy assertions while historical and aesthetic comparisons trace how cultural change alters taste, the balance between form and content, and the obligations and limitations inherent in literary expression.