The Cult of the Ego: The Self in Modern Literature

Goethe once remarked that "every emancipation of the spirit is pernicious unless there is a corresponding growth of control." This remark may be taken as a motto for Goodheartas study of an aspect of the cultural history of the past two hundred years. In separate chapters on Rousseau, Stendhal, Goethe and Carlyle, Dostoevsky, Whitman, Lawrence, and Joyce, Goodheart discovers a community of concern which he calls the cult of the ego. The Cult of the Ego is written with admirable clarity and economy. Its interests are literary, moral and political. Moving freely and knowledgeably among various national literatures, Goodheart has made an original and valuable contribution to the field of comparative literature.