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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 72
Page 72
... language - as an end in itself , not as a means of signifying . Prose writers signify , and they do or should do nothing else . For poets , language is not even really language . Poets are poets because they are ' foreigners ' to the ...
... language - as an end in itself , not as a means of signifying . Prose writers signify , and they do or should do nothing else . For poets , language is not even really language . Poets are poets because they are ' foreigners ' to the ...
Page 76
... language that it would be impossible to conceive of language outside the vivid figures used to describe it . At the very moment of his argument when the issue of non - poetic clarity is being proposed as the fundamental characteristic ...
... language that it would be impossible to conceive of language outside the vivid figures used to describe it . At the very moment of his argument when the issue of non - poetic clarity is being proposed as the fundamental characteristic ...
Page 147
... language , of the embedding of social function in complex patterns of writing , or of a pas- sage to redeemed ... language game recog- nised contrastively in its relation to one or another non - literary languages , or non - literary ...
... language , of the embedding of social function in complex patterns of writing , or of a pas- sage to redeemed ... language game recog- nised contrastively in its relation to one or another non - literary languages , or non - literary ...
Contents
Introduction Elizabeth Beaumont Bissell | 1 |
difference as definition Charles Altieri | 19 |
literature invention and performance Derek Attridge | 48 |
Copyright | |
10 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
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