Showing papers on "Literary science published in 1998"

Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds

Abstract: "The universe of possible worlds is constantly expanding and diversifying thanks to the incessant world-constructing activity of human minds and hands. Literary fiction is probably the most active experimental laboratory of the world-constructing enterprise."-from the author's Preface The standard contrast between fiction and reality, notes Lubomir Dolezel, obscures an array of problems that have beset philosophers and literary critics for centuries. Commentators usually admit that fiction conveys some kind of truth-the truth of the story of Faust, for instance. They acknowledge that fiction usually bears some kind of relation to reality-for example, the London of Dickens. But both the status of the truth and the nature of the relationship have baffled, frustrated, or repelled a long line of thinkers. In Heterocosmica, Lubomir Dolezel offers nothing less than a complete theory of literary fiction based on the idea of possible worlds. Beginning with a discussion of the extant semantics and pragmatics of fictionality-by Leibniz, Russell, Frege, Searle, Auerbach, and others-he relates them to literature, literary theory, and narratology. He also investigates theories of action, intention, and literary communication to develop a system of concepts that allows him to offer perceptive reinterpretations of a host of classical, modern, and postmodern fictional narratives-from Defoe through Dickens, Dostoevsky, Huysmans, Bely, and Kafka to Hemingway, Kundera, Rhys, Plenzdorf, and Coetzee. By careful attention to philosophical inquiry into possible worlds, especially Saul Kripke's and Jaakko Hintikka's, and through long familiarity with literary theory, Dolezel brings us an unprecedented examination of the notion of fictional worlds.

Roman Epic: An Interpretative Introduction

Abstract: The author's approach to Roman epic is interpretative; the reader is invited to study a choice of typical texts, from the beginnings to the end of Antiquity. Famous poets are given the attention they deserve, but also some minor authors are discovered as precious 'missing links' between the ages. Special heed is paid to intertextual relationships between different epochs, cultures, literary genres, linguistic and literary patterns. The book is meant for students and teachers of classical and modern literatures, but also for all those interested in the history of literary genres and cultural ideas.

The idea of ancient literary criticism

Abstract: Yun Lee Too offers a sustained reading of the social function of the body of texts we identify as 'ancient literary criticism' with major implications for how we understand this discourse and also modern criticism and literary theory. The author argues that when Greek and Roman authors discuss what and how to read in works, they are attempting to create and maintain the political community and its identity by regulating the languages available to it. Literary criticism is a process of discrimination between competing discourses, serving as a strategy by which certain forms of speech or writing may be pronounced legitimate at the expense of others. The volume traces ancient criticism from its origins in archaic Greek poetry through to the early Christian era. As well as reading the familiar texts of ancient criticism - Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Poetics, [Longinus] On the Sublime, amongst others - it shows how ancient law, history, and rhetoric participate in the critical process.

The Wind in the Wallows: Literary Theory, Autobiographical Criticism and Subjective Personal Introspection

Abstract: In recent years, consumer research has been enlivened by the advent of perspectives drawn from the humanities in general and literary theory in particular. This paper introduces a comparatively recent development in contemporary literary theory-autobiographical criticism-and notes its relevance to the on-going debate surrounding 'subjective personal introspection', a controversial technique espoused by several leading consumer researchers. The paper contend that, instead of trying to establish its 'scientific' credentials, :he champions of subjective personal introspection might be better served by considering the procedure's predominantly aesthetic character. Just because introspection fails to meet the formal criteria for scientific acceptability, does not mean that the technique is uninsightful.

Interventionist Literary Histories: Nostalgic, Pragmatic, or Utopian?

Abstract: rels of ancients and moderns), literary history as we know it appears to have grown out of eighteenth-century antiquarian interests. In its earliest form it was often simply a compendium of information about writers (of practically anything), usually in straightforward chronological order. With Friedrich Schlegel, the story goes, came the shift from this sort of vast sequence of authors to a more limited corpus (and thus canon) of literary texts.1 The nineteenth century is generally viewed as the time of the greatest achievement in this vein, and many fundamental principles of Western literary history as a discipline were established then.* It is no coincidence that the same moment in history also witnessed the rise of a new form of national cultural self-awareness. A Western literature from the start (as in the various European quar-

The Arabic Literary Heritage: The Development of its Genres and Criticism

Abstract: Preface Chronology 1. An essay on precedents and principles 2. The contexts of the literary tradition 3. The Qu'ran: sacred text and cultural yardstick 4. Poetry 5. belletristic prose and narrative 6. Drama 7. The critical tradition Guide to further reading.

Social criticism of advertising: On the role of literary theory and the use of data

Abstract: This paper discusses the use of literary theory for the social criticism of advertising. In particular, it examines what types of claims can be made simply by analyzing an ad itself and what types of social criticism require extrinsic data about how other readers understand the ad or the historical context of its creation. The author advocates a “doubly integrated” approach to social criticism that combines literary analysis with use of extrinsic empirical data and also integrates the system by which ads are produced with the way they are comprehended. This approach provides a holistic view of the advertising process and a strong basis for critique. Discussion of a demonstration study shows how qualitative data collected from readers can be used to complement traditional literary interpretations of advertisements.

Grub Street and the ivory tower : literary journalism and literary scholarship from Fielding to the Internet

Abstract: Introduction Fielding, Grub Street, and Canary Wharf Coleridge and the Uses of Journalism De Quincey and the Edinburgh and Glasgow University Circles Journalism, Scholarship, and the University College London English Department Darke conceits: Churton Collins, Edmund Gosse, and the Professions of Criticism Literature, Propaganda, and the First World War: The Case of Blackwood's Magazine 'Crimes of Criticism': Virginia Woolf and Literary Journalism The TLS and the Second World War, and How to Fill Some Gaps in Modern British Cultural History The Critic as Anti-Journalist: Leavis after Scrutiny Saving Lives: Kenneth Tynan and the Duties of Dramatic Criticism 'Between the Saxon Smile and the Yankee Yawp': Problems and Contexts of Literary Reviewing in Ireland What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Poetry: Some Aporias of Literary Journalism Teachers, Writers Living on Writing Notes on Contributors Index

Contexts for criticism

Abstract: In this introduction to literary criticism, the major critical theories of literary interpretation-- historical, formal, reader-response, mimetic, intertextual, poststructural, and new historical-- are presented in separate chapters that include detailed introductions, theoretical essays that explain and argue the value of each theory, and applications essays in which the theories are applied to the same three literary works: William Shakespeare' s The Tempest, Kate Chopin' s The Awakening, and William Wordsworth' s Ode: Intimations of Immortality. Wordsworth' s and Chopin' s works are included in the book.

Aspects of Bloomsbury: Studies in Modern English Literary and Intellectual History

Abstract: Preface The Philosophical Realism of Virginia Woolf Bertrand Russell: The Logic of a Literary Symbol Bloomsbury Letters Keynes, Lawrence and Cambridge Revisited E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel and Literary History Towards the Literary History of A Room of One's Own Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press Wittgenstein in Bloomsbury Notes Index

Treating “Historical” Sources as Literary Texts: Literary Historicism and Modern British History*

Abstract: In recent years, a new form of historical writing, produced in growing quantities by members of English departments, has emerged, and professional historians have been for the most part not quite sure how to respond. On the one hand, one wants to welcome the “rediscovery of history” by literary scholars; on the other, the history being rediscovered does not look quite like what most professional historians have thought history to be. Should one welcome the infusion of new energies and new perspectives into historical study, or should one be wary of an intellectual Trojan horse? Will the influence of this mode of scholarship lead historians to neglect the fidelity to fact, the belief in the existence of an ultimately objective “past”—the whole “scientific” side of our famously ambiguous discipline? Will the “new historicism” in literary studies enrich or undermine the historical enterprise?

The Handbook to Literary Research

Abstract: A Handbook to Literary Research has been written specifically for students embarking on an MA in Literature. It provides an introduction to research techniques, methodologies and information sources relevant to the study of literature at postgraduate level. Divided into sections this guide begins by offering a practical guide to the uses of research libraries; research aids such as bibligraphies and perodical indexes; and computers, especially the Internet. Section two introduces students to the work of textual scholars and bibliographers, focusing particulary on the practical and theoretical issues faced by textual editors in their effort to produce reliable texts of literary works. The third section explores connections between literary research and literary theory, outlining how developments in thinking about literature during the twentieth century have opened up new ways of doing research within literary studies. Five contemporary theoretical approaches are outlined here: feminist theory, deconstruction, reader-response and reception theory, new historicism, and post-colonial theory. Finally the Handbook offers detailed guidance on how to write and present an MA dissertation. A glossary and checklist for finding guides, reference books and other sources for study are also included. This book the only of its kind, and will be a vital resources for students on any MA Literature programme. It will also be useful to those undertaking private research in Literature or related fields.

The invention of literary subjectivity

Abstract: In the course of the 13th century, writers in France discovered literary subjectivity. It was not the introspection of philosophy, or the confession of a soul, or the vanity of a memoir. Rather, the subjectivity they disclosed was the play between personality and page. The discovery allowed differences of individual opinion and perspective which, when expressed through literary means, raised issues of history, of truth and evidence, and ultimately of authority. The "I" of 13th-century literature became an arena of invention, exploration and expansion as a simple literary convention developed into an array of new genres. In this work, the author examines these developments by looking anew at the French Arthurian tradition and the Roman de la Rose. He traces the rise of subjectivity in the lyrics of the French medieval period and examines both biographies and histories written by Abelard, Raymond Lulle and Joinville.

Autobiography From St. Augustine to David Antin: Examining the Construction of the Self as Mutually Reflective of Cultural Developments in Science and Technology, Art, and Literary Theory.

Abstract: In this study, I look at the mutually reflective changes in society and autobiography in works definitive for their various periods: Augustine's The Confessions from antiquity; Rousseau's The Confessions from the eighteenth century; the autobiographical writings o f Gertrude Stein, from the modernist period; and, most importantly here, the focus on the development o f David Antin's work as representative o f both postmodernism and current culture. Specifically, I consider the construction o f the self in respect to art, literary theory, memory research, and science and technology. During the second half o f the twentieth century, computers have permeated almost every facet o f society. Transmission o f information in a high-speed, electronic society is represented as fragments and collage, and Antin's early disjointed autobiographies reflect this. His work, however, does not merely extend or expand upon traditional autobiographical methods; it turns sharply and breaks from long-held cultural notions o f how nature and the self function as illustrated in autobiography, rejecting all previous beliefs o f order and where the se lf may be located. As he ages, his work moves toward a radical type o f order or unity, reflecting the current technology and the ongoing cultural desire for order. This desire is reinforced by the growing interest in neural networks, quantum physics, and chaos theory, all o f which promote the premise that underlying patterns or recursions exist throughout various levels o f a highly interconnected system. By finding the recursion, we allow the order o f the system to emerge. However, because patterns may not be immediately observable when a system is in a particular stage o f change or scale o f measurement, a system often is

The merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare

Abstract: Key Features: *Study methods *Introduction to the text *Summaries with critical notes *Themes and techniques *Textual analysis of key passages *Author biography *Historical and literary background *Modern and historical critical approaches *Chronology *Glossary of literary terms