Showing papers on "Literary science published in 2006"

Criticism and ideology : a study in Marxist literary theory

Abstract: Terry Eagleton is one of the most important - and most radical - theorists writing today His witty and acerbic attacks on contemporary culture and society are read and enjoyed by many, and his studies of literature are regarded as classics of contemporary criticism In this new edition of his groundbreaking treatise on literary theory, Eagleton seeks to develop a sophisticated relationship between Marxism and literary criticism Ranging across the key works of Raymond Williams, Lenin, Trostsky, Brecht, Adorno, Benjamin, Lukacs and Sartre, he develops a nuanced critique of traditional literary criticism, while producing a compelling theoretical account of ideology Eagleton uses this perspective to offer fascinating analyses of canonical writers, including George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, TS Eliot, WB Yeats, James Joyce and DH Lawrence However, he distances himself from a simplistic application of Marxist categories and shows how ideology can play a productive and subversive role in their work

The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms

Abstract: A twenty-first century version of Roger Fowler's 1973 Dictionary of Modern Critical Terms, this latest edition of The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms is the most up-to-date guide to critical and theoretical concepts available to students of literature at all levels. With over forty newly commissioned entries, this essential reference book includes: * an exhaustive range of entries, covering such topics as genre, form, cultural theory and literary technique * new definitions of contemporary critical issues such as Cybercriticism and Globalization * complete coverage of traditional and radical approaches to the study and production of literature * thorough accounts of critical terminology and analyses of key academic debates * full cross-referencing throughout and suggestions for further reading. Covering both long-established terminology as well as the specialist vocabulary of modern theoretical schools, The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms is an indispensable guide to the principal terms and concepts encountered in debates over literary studies in the twenty-first century.

Literary Reading : Empirical & Theoretical Studies

Abstract: This is the first major book in English on literary reading to be based on empirical methods. Moving the focus away from interpretation to the experience of literary texts, these studies demonstrate the role played by feeling in readers' responses, showing how feeling performs important functions during reading that cannot be accounted for by cognitive understanding. These studies not only reinvigorate the concept of literariness, they are also thoroughly inter-disciplinary, offering a coherent approach to literary reading that draws on literary theory, psychology, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology. Several chapters help to introduce the empirical approach for students.

Literary theory and criticism : an Oxford guide

Abstract: Literart Theory and Criticism : An Oxford Guide is unique in its comprehensive coverage. Consisting of 38 essays, written by experts in each field, the volume provides explication, evaluation, and historical contextualization of the theory and practice of literary criticism.

The Literary Tourist: Readers and Places in Romantic and Victorian Britain

Abstract: You've already read the book - why visit the place? When and why did readers start visiting sites with literary associations - whether writers' graves, birthplaces, houses, or the setting of their novels? This original, witty, illustrated study offers the first analytical history of the rise and development of literary tourism in nineteenth-century Britain, associated with authors from Shakespeare, Gray, Keats and Burns to Scott, the Bronte sisters, and Thomas Hardy. Indispensable for the student of literature, the travel literature and the tourism of the nineteenth century.

Ideas of the Book and Histories of Literature: After Theory?

Abstract: The continuing fallout from the theory wars, evident not least in the nostalgic after-theory narrative that is still in vogue, has dissipated critical energy in contemporary literary studies. Rejecting that narrative, this essay calls for a review of the legacy of theory and the polemical oppositions that set it against other scholarly enterprises, like book history. In particular, it suggests that the theoretical interrogation of the category of literature in the past forty years fruitfully intersects with book history's investigation of the material conditions of literary production, opening up new possibilities for literary historiography, while also imposing new demands on it. The essay identifies two traditions of antiessentialist thought (the skeptical and the enchanted), considers the ontology of the printed literary text, and examines the legacies of, among others, Jacques Derrida and Pierre Bourdieu. (PDMcD)

Victorian Literature and Culture

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Historical, Cultural and Intellectual Context 2.1 Arts and Culture 2.2 Philosophy and Religion 2.3. Politics and Economics 2.4. Developments in Science and Technology 3. Literature in the Victorian Period 3.1 Poetry 3.2 Fiction 3.3 Drama 3.4 Non-Fictional Prose 3.5 Literary Movements 4. Critical Approaches 4.1 Historical Overview 4.2 Current Issues and Debates 5. Resources for Independent Study 5.1 Chronology of Key Historical and Cultural Events 5.2 Glossary of Key Literary Terms and Concepts 5.3 Further Reading and Resources Index.

Studying Transcultural Literary History

Abstract: In our globalised world, literature is less and less confined to national spaces. Europe-centred frameworks for literary studies have become insufficient; academics are increasingly called upon to address matters of cultural difference. In this volume, leading scholars discuss the critical and methodical challenges that these developments pose to the writing of literary history.

Literary and Linguistic Approaches to Feminist Narratology

Abstract: List of Figures, Tables and Boxes Acknowledgements Feminist Narratology in Context The Question of Gender and Form The Question of Gender and Context The Importance of Similarities Questioning Intra-category Variation Media Narratives and Success and Failure Gender, Age and Narrative Development Beyond Feminist Narratology Notes Bibliography Index

Empirical Approaches to Studying Literary Readers: The State of the Discipline

Abstract: What is literary reading, and is it possible to distinguish it from other kinds of reading? I have two reasons for beginning with this question. First, it evokes some central controversies over reading that have occurred in the last two or three decades that remain unresolved; and, second, such controversies suggest the need for experimental methods studying acts of reading by real readers. Given the rejection of literariness by recent literary theorists, these two questions are critical for the future of literary studies. Terry Eagleton in 1983 expressed a now common view: there can be “no ‘essence’ of literature whatsoever.... Any writing may be read ‘poetically.’” Thus given the right frame we would read a railway timetable as literature. It follows, writes Eagleton, that

Authors, intentions and literary meaning

Abstract: This article discusses the relationship (or lack thereof) between authors’ intentions and the meaning of literary works. It considers the advantages and disadvantages of Extreme and Modest Actual Intentionalism, Conventionalism, and two versions of Hypothetical Intentionalism, and discusses the role that one's theoretical commitments about the robustness of linguistic conventions and the publicity of literary works should play in determining which view one accepts.

Practices of the Sentimental Imagination: Melodrama, the Novel, and the Social Imaginary in Nineteenth-Century Japan

Abstract: The history of the book in 19th Century Japan follows an uneven course that resists the simple chronology often used to mark a divide between pre-modern and modern literary history. By examining the obscured histories of publication, circulation, and reception of widely consumed literary works from late Edo to the early Meiji period, Jonathan Zwicker traces a genealogy of the literary field across a long 19th Century: one that stresses continuities between the generic conventions of early modern fiction and the modern novel. In the literature of sentiment Zwicker locates a tear-streaked lens through which to view literary practices and readerly expectations that evolved across the century. "Practices of the Sentimental Imagination" emphasises both qualitative and quantitative aspects of literary production and consumption, balancing close readings of canonical and non-canonical texts, sophisticated applications of critical theory, and careful archival research into the holdings of 19th Century lending libraries and private collections. By exploring the relationships between and among Japanese literary works and texts from late imperial China, Europe, and America, Zwicker also situates the Japanese novel within a larger literary history of the novel across the global 19th Century.

Modern Arabic Literature

Abstract: This is a succinct introduction to modern Arabic literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Designed primarily as an introductory textbook for English-speaking undergraduates, it will also be of interest to a more general readership interested in the contemporary Middle East or in comparative and modern literature. The work attempts to situate the development of modern Arabic literature in the context of the medieval Arabic literary tradition, as well as the new literary forms derived from the West, exploring the interaction between social, political and cultural change in the Middle East and the development of a modern Arabic literary tradition. Poetry, prose writing and the theatre are discussed in separate sections. The work overall aims to give a balanced account of the subject, reflecting the different pace of literary development in diverse parts of the Arab world, including North Africa.

Reading, Publishing and the Formation of Literary Taste in England, 1880-1914

Abstract: Between 1880 and 1914, England saw the emergence of an unprecedented range of new literary forms from Modernism to the popular thriller. Not coincidentally, this period also marked the first overt references to an art/market divide through which books took on new significance as markers of taste and class. Though this division has received considerable attention relative to the narrative structures of the period's texts, little attention has been paid to the institutions and ideologies that largely determined a text's accessibility and circulated format and thus its mode of address to specific readerships. Hammond addresses this gap in scholarship, asking the following key questions: How did publishing and distribution practices influence reader choice? Who decided whether or not a book was a 'classic'? In a patriarchal, class-bound literary field, how were the symbolic positions of 'author' and 'reader' affected by the increasing numbers of women who not only bought and borrowed, but also wrote novels? Using hitherto unexamined archive material and focussing in detail on the working practices of publishers and distributors such as Oxford University Press and W.H. Smith and Sons, Hammond combines the methodologies of sociology, literary studies and book history to make an original and important contribution to our understanding of the cultural dynamics and rhetorics of the fin-de-siecle literary field in England.

Literary gestures : the aesthetic in Asian American writing

Abstract: Literary Gestures: The Aesthetic in Asian American Writing contests the dominance of materialist and cultural critiques in Asian American literary discourse by re-centering critical attention around issues of aesthetics and literary form. Collapsing the perceived divisions between the "ethnic" and the "aesthetic" in Asian American literary criticism, the eleven original essays in this volume provide theoretically sophisticated and formally sensitive readings of works in prose, poetry, and drama. These contributions foreground discussions of genre, canonicity, narrative, and literary value to show how aesthetic and formal concerns play an important part in the production and consumption of these works. By calling for a more balanced mode of criticism, the eleven original essays in this volume invite students and scholars to reinvest in the literary not as a negation of the sociopolitical but as a complementary strategy in reading and understanding Asian American literature.

Teaching for Social Justice: Reeducating the Emotions Through Literary Study

Abstract: Many literature teachers and scholars today are committed to promoting social justice through both their teaching and their scholarship. Some of the most prominent critical approaches to literature in recent decades-Marxism, feminism, gayllesbian/ queer criticism, and postcolonialism-originated as efforts to com­ bat injustices suffered by specific groups, while other approaches, such as psychoanalysis, semiotics, and deconstruction, have been given political and/or ethical inflections and recruited to assist in a more general struggle for social justice. During the 1990s, criticism was seen as taking a decidedly ethical turn (see Parker; Buell). Indeed, as Wayne Booth and others have observed, virtually all postmodernists and most other sorts of critics as well are con­ cerned ultimately with questions of ethics and justice (see Booth 41--42; Siebers 5; Clausen 22). But despite this commitment of critical and pedagog ical activity to political and ethical ends, there is little evidence that literary study has made much difference in the injustice that permeates our world, and there is good reason to believe that literary study as it is currently being pursued is incapable of doing so. The reason is not, as common sense might suggest, that the academic activity of literary study, pursued only by a very small and effete minority, is simply powerless against the massive evils of the world at large. For while it is true that literary professionals are small in number and slight in status, the fact that we teach-and/or teach others to

Literature, Journalism and the Avant-Garde: Intersection in Egypt

Abstract: Introduction 1. Literary Journalism in Egypt: Its Emergence and Development 2. Literary Journalism in Egypt: Increasing Politicization 3. The Theoretical Basis of the Avant-Garde in 1960s Egypt 4. The Sixties Generation and its Politics of Literature 5. The Sixties Generation in Search of a Specific Literary Identity 6. The Establishment of a New Literary Paradigm: The 1970s and Beyond

Law's Literature, Law's Body: The Aversion to Linguistic Ambiguity in Law and Literature

Abstract: In any kind of literary analysis, the critic must grapple with linguistic ambiguity, and the law cannot help but operate in a linguistic realm as well. Neither of these claims is terribly startling, yet studies of law and literature by literature scholars in particular remain strangely resistant to both. Literature scholars working in this field surprisingly tend to assert that the law grounds the ephemeral realm of the literary, and thus that the law corrects literature's linguistic quality. This unfortunate theoretical tendency is an effect of a broader problem in literary studies: an aversion to ambiguity that has seeped from studies of the novel into studies of law and literature.

In the Company of Books: Literature and Its "Classes" in Nineteenth-Century America

Abstract: A vital feature of American culture in the nineteenth century was the growing awareness that the literary marketplace consisted not of a single, unified, relatively homogeneous reading public, but rather of many disparate, overlapping reading communities differentiated by interests, class, and level of education, as well as by gender and stage of life. Tracing the segmentation of the literary marketplace in nineteenth-century America, this book analyzes the implications of the subdivided literary field for readers, writers, and literature itself. With sections focusing on segmentation by age, gender, and cultural status, "In the Company of Books" analyzes the ways authors and publishers carved up the field of literary production into a multitude of distinct submarkets, differentiated their products, and targeted specific groups of readers in order to guide their book-buying decisions. Combining innovative approaches to canonical authors, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, and Henry James with engaging investigations into the careers of many lesser-known literary figures, Sarah Wadsworth reveals how American writers responded to - and contributed to - this diverse, and diversified, market. "In the Company of Books" contends that specialized editorial and marketing tactics, in concert with the narrative strategies of authors and the reading practices of the book-buying public, transformed the literary landscape, leading to new roles for the book in American culture, the innovation of literary genres, and new relationships between books and readers. Both an exploration of a fragmented print culture through the lens of nineteenth-century American literature and an analysis of nineteenth-century American literature from the perspective of this subdivided marketplace, this wide-ranging study offers fresh insight into the impact of market forces on the development of American literature.

Salons, History, and the Creation of Seventeenth-Century France: Mastering Memory

Abstract: Contents: A note on translations Introduction The voices of shadows: the salons and literary taste Defining a literary culture: the Ruelles and literary innovation From critics to hostesses: creating classical France Disseminating a national past: teaching Le Grand Siecle Afterword Bibliography Index.

The Art of English: Literary Creativity

Abstract: What distinguishes some texts as 'art'? This book critically examines texts which can be considered 'literary', ranging from poetry, drama and fiction to performance art and online literature. It provides a lively and accessible introduction to stylistic, semiotic and multimodal analysis, drawing on literature, performance and linguistic studies.

Literary Realism and Psychology: A Response to Moghaddam’s Proposal

Abstract: Moghaddam has suggested that psychologists could profit from the study of fiction. Although agreeing with Moghaddam in general, I feel it necessary to specify, fairly closely, the type of fiction which might be susceptible to psychological analysis. I choose literary realism, as defined by Wellek, as a possible area for fruitful analysis. Having discounted the difficulties possibly besetting such an analysis, I give some examples of the ways in which the study of the works of those working in the literary realist tradition could enlarge and enhance our understanding of psychological processes. Ultimately, however, I conclude that, in order to benefit fully from such a study, psychology would have to undergo a conceptual transformation since the two areas into which, ostensibly, literary knowledge could be incorporated (personality theory and the practice and theory of psychotherapy) are not constituted in such a way that such incorporation is possible.

Literary Hypertext in the Foreign Language Classroom: A Case Study Report.

Abstract: Literary hypertext has often been acknowledged as the embodiment of poststructuralist literary theory (e.g. Coover, 1992; Landow, 1997; Bolter, 2001). The only literary medium that is produced, edited, published and received electronically, it encourages readings that defy the conventionally linear decoding process. With respect to text production, it opens up alternative ways of organising semantic structures in individualised, associative ways, which invites constructivist teaching approaches in the foreign language classroom. This article provides a general introduction to definitions, formal criteria, major theories and historical developments. It portrays a selection of existing structural and cognitive linguistic approaches, such as textuality, coherence, communication and learning psychology. A variety of teaching approaches are outlined to convey to what extent hypertext has entered the primary and secondary school syllabus. At the heart of this investigation lies a case study report desc...