The Question of Literature: The Place of the Literary in Contemporary TheoryElizabeth Beaumont Bissell The question of literature brings together essays by a number of distinguished theorists and academics on the changing cultural significance of literature as such. As literary theory has grown more influential, interdisciplinary and sophisticated, it has come to concern itself with a much greater range of issues and objects than those traditionally considered literary. Literary theory now addresses philosophy, history, psychology, politics, the media, and potentially every other aspect of our culture - but as a result the nature of its relation to literature itself has become less clear. The question of literature seeks to recontextualise literature within the diversity of postmodern theory, showing how theory has changed our understanding of literature and its questions, and affirming the ways in which literature remains valuable and transformative for present day culture. It relates literature importantly to the institution of the university, but also to ethical judgements and values, new media and computer technology, and the nature of representative democracy. In the scope of its discussion The question of literature constitutes a major intervention in current literary-theoretical debates, and will be of great interest not only to academics and students in literary, social, and cultural studies but to anyone concerned with these debates or with the future of literature as such. |
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Page 33
... imaginative projections necessary for producing justice in particular situations.22 So if one can make literary experience ... imagination not only tries to sympathise with all of the relevant points of view , it also builds on its own ...
... imaginative projections necessary for producing justice in particular situations.22 So if one can make literary experience ... imagination not only tries to sympathise with all of the relevant points of view , it also builds on its own ...
Page 199
... imagination too easy , too frictionless , too free from impediment , and thus removes any possible reason why a rational person would want to spend time deciphering and interpreting the products of imagination . If literature were as ...
... imagination too easy , too frictionless , too free from impediment , and thus removes any possible reason why a rational person would want to spend time deciphering and interpreting the products of imagination . If literature were as ...
Page 201
... imagination works -revulsion from some of those who are closest to us in space , time , and cir- cumstance , and even a wish that suffering and bad luck may befall them.42 This revulsion or repulsion , which fellow critics will ...
... imagination works -revulsion from some of those who are closest to us in space , time , and cir- cumstance , and even a wish that suffering and bad luck may befall them.42 This revulsion or repulsion , which fellow critics will ...
Contents
Introduction Elizabeth Beaumont Bissell | 1 |
difference as definition Charles Altieri | 19 |
literature invention and performance Derek Attridge | 48 |
Copyright | |
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aesthetic argue Attridge become Blanchot Burroughs Burroughs's Butler's Camus canon claims concept creative crisis cultural studies cut-up/fold-in death drive death instincts defined democracy Derek Attridge Derrida différance discipline discourse distance distinction Eagleton emotions erary essay ethical criticism event example existence fact fiction force freedom Freud Fugitive Pieces function human hypertext Ibid ical ideology imagination institution invention Jacques Derrida judgement kind language linguistic liter literary experience literary studies literary texts literary theory literature's Mal Waldron means metafiction modern modes moral Naked Lunch narrative norms notion Nova Express novel Nussbaum object obsession Oedipa Peggy Kamuf perhaps philosophy pleasure pleasure principle poem poetic poetry political possible postmodern practice precisely principle production prose psyche question of literature reader reading relation repetition represent rhetorical Sartre Sartre's sense simply singularity social specific textual theorists tion trans voice words writing