The Demons of Leonard Cohen

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
The Demons of Leonard Cohen
Abstract
The author asks: Who speaks in Leonard Cohen’s oeuvre? He remarks that the countless roles assumed by Montreal poet, novelist and singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen’s (1934-2016) persona were not some innocent game, but strategies in response to the sometimes conflicting demands of a ‘life in art’: they served as masks that represent the performer’s face and state of mind in a heightened yet detached way. Based on this insight, the author delves into seven themes from Cohen's work: public persona, artistic practice, alienation, desire and loss, religion, power, and encounter. The author contends that these seven approaches offer an answer as to who Leonard Cohen was and how he put himself into his work: the battle with the merciless gaze of the other; the artist in search of himself; his fundamental lonelioness; the priest and believer within Cohen; and impotence and the drive for power.
Place
Ottawa, ON
Publisher
University of Ottawa Press
Date
2020
# of Pages
271p.
Language
en
ISBN
978-0-7766-3120-2
Notes

Originally published in Dutch as: De demonen van Leonard Cohen. Kasteelstraat, Beligum: Lannoo, 2015. 296p.

Citation
Mus, Francis. The Demons of Leonard Cohen. Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press, 2020.
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