BIBFRAME Work

Title

The problem of free will in David Foster Wallace

Type

  • Text
  • Monograph

Contribution

Subject

Wallace, David Foster--Criticism and interpretation. (LCSH)

Language

Classification

Content

Supplementary content

Summary

"This book argues that David Foster Wallace failed to provide a response to the existential predicament of our time. Wallace wanted to confront despair through art, but he remained trapped, and his entrapment originates in the 'existentialist contradiction': the impossibility of affirming the meaningfulness of life and an ethics of compassion while believing in free will. To substantiate this thesis, the analysis reads Wallace in conversation with the existentialist philosophers and writers who influenced him: Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. It compares his non-fiction with the sociologies of Christopher Lasch, Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, and Anthony Giddens. And it finds inspiration in Giacomo Leopardi, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Emanuele Severino to conclude that the philosophy which pervades Wallace's works entails despair and represents the essence of our civilization's interpretation of the world"-- Provided by publisher.

Authorized Access Point

Pitari, Paolo, 1989-. The problem of free will in David Foster Wallace

Admin Metadata

  • Date: 2026-09-11T20:22:05.023824+00:00
  • Agent: cbc
  • Status: c
  • Derived from: 23564436

Admin Metadata

  • Date: 2026-09-11
  • Cataloger id: Unknown
  • Description level: http://id.loc.gov/ontologies/bibframe-2-6-0/
  • Description language: eng
  • Description authentication: pcc

Alternative Formats

Blue Core Actions

  • Load to Marva Marva loads Instances, not Works. Open one of this Work's Instances and load that into Marva instead.
  • Load to Sinopia
  • Export to Catalog Only Instances can be exported. Open one of this Work's Instances and export that instead.