Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others

Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error
Regarding the Pain of Others

(2003) was the last of Susan Sontag’s books to be published in her lifetime. In the book lists (“Also by Susan Sontag”) found in the front matter of her posthumous publications

Regarding

appears among her “Essays”. Sontag would likely have agreed with this classification; she herself draws attention to its status as a follow-on to

On Photography

(1977). That said, the

form

of

Regarding the Pain of Others

is less akin to that of her portmanteau collections,

Against Interpretation

(1966) or

Styles of Radical Will

(1969), say, than it is to

Illness as Metaphor

(1978) and

AIDS and its Metaphors

(1989), both of which are extended, relatively self-contained studies in the rhetoric of culture. The focus on disease and suffering in both and the extended…

6654 words

Citation: Poague, Leland. "Regarding the Pain of Others". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 November 2021 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13128, accessed 25 November 2024.]

13128 Regarding the Pain of Others 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.