Robin Le Poidevin
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199265893
- eISBN:
- 9780191708619
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199265893.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Do we ‘perceive’ time? In what sense does memory give us access to the past? Can photographs and paintings capture more than a single moment? What is ‘fictional time’? These apparently disparate ...
More
Do we ‘perceive’ time? In what sense does memory give us access to the past? Can photographs and paintings capture more than a single moment? What is ‘fictional time’? These apparently disparate questions all concern the ways in which we represent aspects of time, in thought, experience, art, and fiction. They also raise fundamental problems for our philosophical understanding, both of mental representation, and of the nature of time itself. This book brings together issues in philosophy, psychology, aesthetics, and literary theory in examining the mechanisms underlying our representation of time in various media, and brings these to bear on metaphysical debates over the real nature of time. These debates concern questions over which aspects of time are genuinely part of time's intrinsic nature, and which, in some sense, are mind-dependent. Arguably, the most important debate concerns time's passage: does time pass in reality, or is the division of events into past, present and future simply a reflection of our temporal perspective — a result of the interaction between a ‘static’ world and minds capable of representing it? It is argued that contrary to what perception and memory lead us to suppose, time does not really pass, and this surprising conclusion can be reconciled with the characteristic features of temporal experience. The book goes on to consider the representation of time in art and fiction, and draws on the metaphysical and psychological themes previously discussed to cast light on the nature of depiction and fictional narrative.Less
Do we ‘perceive’ time? In what sense does memory give us access to the past? Can photographs and paintings capture more than a single moment? What is ‘fictional time’? These apparently disparate questions all concern the ways in which we represent aspects of time, in thought, experience, art, and fiction. They also raise fundamental problems for our philosophical understanding, both of mental representation, and of the nature of time itself. This book brings together issues in philosophy, psychology, aesthetics, and literary theory in examining the mechanisms underlying our representation of time in various media, and brings these to bear on metaphysical debates over the real nature of time. These debates concern questions over which aspects of time are genuinely part of time's intrinsic nature, and which, in some sense, are mind-dependent. Arguably, the most important debate concerns time's passage: does time pass in reality, or is the division of events into past, present and future simply a reflection of our temporal perspective — a result of the interaction between a ‘static’ world and minds capable of representing it? It is argued that contrary to what perception and memory lead us to suppose, time does not really pass, and this surprising conclusion can be reconciled with the characteristic features of temporal experience. The book goes on to consider the representation of time in art and fiction, and draws on the metaphysical and psychological themes previously discussed to cast light on the nature of depiction and fictional narrative.
Robert H. F. Carver
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199217861
- eISBN:
- 9780191712357
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199217861.003.0014
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This epilogue begins with a brief discussion of the topics not covered in the preceding chapters. It then describes how Apuleius continues to exert his influence well beyond Milton in England. It ...
More
This epilogue begins with a brief discussion of the topics not covered in the preceding chapters. It then describes how Apuleius continues to exert his influence well beyond Milton in England. It also contends that many of the poetic and pictorial effusions inspired by ‘Cupid and Psyche’ have been bland, trite, or insipid.Less
This epilogue begins with a brief discussion of the topics not covered in the preceding chapters. It then describes how Apuleius continues to exert his influence well beyond Milton in England. It also contends that many of the poetic and pictorial effusions inspired by ‘Cupid and Psyche’ have been bland, trite, or insipid.
Joshua Landy
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195188561
- eISBN:
- 9780199949458
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195188561.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book offers a new rationale for the place of literary reading in the well-lived life. While it is often assumed that fictions must be informative or morally improving in order to be of any real ...
More
This book offers a new rationale for the place of literary reading in the well-lived life. While it is often assumed that fictions must be informative or morally improving in order to be of any real benefit to us, certain texts defy this assumption by functioning as training-grounds for the capacities: in engaging with them we stand not to become more knowledgeable or more virtuous but more skilled, whether at rational thinking, at maintaining necessary illusions, at achieving tranquillity of mind, or even at religious faith. Instead of offering us propositional knowledge, these texts yield know-how; rather than attempting to instruct by means of their content, they hone capacities by means of their form; far from seducing with the promise of instantaneous transformation, they recognize, with Aristotle, that change is a matter of sustained and patient practice. Their demands are high, but the reward they promise is nothing short of a more richly lived life.Less
This book offers a new rationale for the place of literary reading in the well-lived life. While it is often assumed that fictions must be informative or morally improving in order to be of any real benefit to us, certain texts defy this assumption by functioning as training-grounds for the capacities: in engaging with them we stand not to become more knowledgeable or more virtuous but more skilled, whether at rational thinking, at maintaining necessary illusions, at achieving tranquillity of mind, or even at religious faith. Instead of offering us propositional knowledge, these texts yield know-how; rather than attempting to instruct by means of their content, they hone capacities by means of their form; far from seducing with the promise of instantaneous transformation, they recognize, with Aristotle, that change is a matter of sustained and patient practice. Their demands are high, but the reward they promise is nothing short of a more richly lived life.
Amy Johnson Frykholm
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195159837
- eISBN:
- 9780199835614
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195159837.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Examines the readership of the contemporary best-selling series Left Behind, drawing on a qualitative study of readers. Rapture Culture asks what role an anti-worldly theory like dispensationalism ...
More
Examines the readership of the contemporary best-selling series Left Behind, drawing on a qualitative study of readers. Rapture Culture asks what role an anti-worldly theory like dispensationalism plays in contemporary evangelicalism when evangelicals have gained increasing social and political power. The book argues that apocalyptic stories are a form of social relationship. They shape identity not only through agreement and a sense of belonging, but also through disagreement and dissent. The most urgent message of the rapture for readers of Left Behind is that the end of time could come soon, and therefore a decision about personal salvation is necessary. While it is true that the Left Behind series plays on readers’ fears, the primary fear is not so much a social or political fear as a personal one—a fear that the reader himself or herself might be left behind. The primary purpose of the Left Behind series is to promote evangelism. Readers feel convicted by the books of the need to tell their loved ones about Christ and to seek the conversion of others. In addition, the story of rapture and tribulation provides a lens through which readers can interpret the chaotic and sometimes disconcerting events of the world. The popularity of the Left Behind series and its diffusion into mainstream culture leads the book to conclude with the suggestion that evangelicalism is wrongly understood as a “subculture” and instead needs to be conceived as a broad and fluid part of dominant popular culture in the United States. Rapture Culture urges its readers to take seriously both the fears and the desires about social life present in the testimonies of Left Behind’s readership and to consider popular fiction reading as a complex and dynamic act of faith in American Protestantism.Less
Examines the readership of the contemporary best-selling series Left Behind, drawing on a qualitative study of readers. Rapture Culture asks what role an anti-worldly theory like dispensationalism plays in contemporary evangelicalism when evangelicals have gained increasing social and political power. The book argues that apocalyptic stories are a form of social relationship. They shape identity not only through agreement and a sense of belonging, but also through disagreement and dissent. The most urgent message of the rapture for readers of Left Behind is that the end of time could come soon, and therefore a decision about personal salvation is necessary. While it is true that the Left Behind series plays on readers’ fears, the primary fear is not so much a social or political fear as a personal one—a fear that the reader himself or herself might be left behind. The primary purpose of the Left Behind series is to promote evangelism. Readers feel convicted by the books of the need to tell their loved ones about Christ and to seek the conversion of others. In addition, the story of rapture and tribulation provides a lens through which readers can interpret the chaotic and sometimes disconcerting events of the world. The popularity of the Left Behind series and its diffusion into mainstream culture leads the book to conclude with the suggestion that evangelicalism is wrongly understood as a “subculture” and instead needs to be conceived as a broad and fluid part of dominant popular culture in the United States. Rapture Culture urges its readers to take seriously both the fears and the desires about social life present in the testimonies of Left Behind’s readership and to consider popular fiction reading as a complex and dynamic act of faith in American Protestantism.
Jody Azzouni
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199738946
- eISBN:
- 9780199866175
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199738946.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Ordinary language and scientific language enable us to speak about, in a singular way (with demonstratives and names), what we recognize not to exist: fictions, the contents of our hallucinations, ...
More
Ordinary language and scientific language enable us to speak about, in a singular way (with demonstratives and names), what we recognize not to exist: fictions, the contents of our hallucinations, abstract objects, and various idealized nonexistent objects to which our scientific theories more conveniently apply. Indeed, references to such nonexistent items—especially in the case of the application of mathematics to the sciences—are indispensable. Scientific and ordinary languages allow us to say things about Pegasus or about hallucinated objects that are true (or false) such as “Pegasus was believed by the ancient Greeks to be a flying horse,” or “That elf I’m now hallucinating over there is wearing blue shoes.” Standard contemporary metaphysical views and standard contemporary philosophical semantic analyses of singular idioms have not successfully accommodated these routine practices of saying true and false things about the nonexistent while simultaneously honoring the insight that such things do not exist in any way at all (and have no properties). This book reconfigures metaphysics and semantics in a radical way to allow the accommodation of our ordinary ways of speaking of what does not exist while retaining the absolutely crucial assumption that such objects exist in no way at all, have no properties, and so are not the truth-makers for the truths and falsities that are about them.Less
Ordinary language and scientific language enable us to speak about, in a singular way (with demonstratives and names), what we recognize not to exist: fictions, the contents of our hallucinations, abstract objects, and various idealized nonexistent objects to which our scientific theories more conveniently apply. Indeed, references to such nonexistent items—especially in the case of the application of mathematics to the sciences—are indispensable. Scientific and ordinary languages allow us to say things about Pegasus or about hallucinated objects that are true (or false) such as “Pegasus was believed by the ancient Greeks to be a flying horse,” or “That elf I’m now hallucinating over there is wearing blue shoes.” Standard contemporary metaphysical views and standard contemporary philosophical semantic analyses of singular idioms have not successfully accommodated these routine practices of saying true and false things about the nonexistent while simultaneously honoring the insight that such things do not exist in any way at all (and have no properties). This book reconfigures metaphysics and semantics in a radical way to allow the accommodation of our ordinary ways of speaking of what does not exist while retaining the absolutely crucial assumption that such objects exist in no way at all, have no properties, and so are not the truth-makers for the truths and falsities that are about them.
Rumina Sethi
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198183396
- eISBN:
- 9780191674020
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183396.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This book focuses on the construction of forms of historical consciousness in narratives, or schools of narrative. The study seeks to underscore what goes behind the writing of ‘true’ and ‘authentic’ ...
More
This book focuses on the construction of forms of historical consciousness in narratives, or schools of narrative. The study seeks to underscore what goes behind the writing of ‘true’ and ‘authentic’ histories by treating historical fiction as the literary dimension of nationalist ideology. It traces nationalism from its abstract underpinnings to its concrete manifestation in historical fiction which underwrites the Indian freedom struggle. The construction of identity through mythicized conceptions of India is examined in detail through Raja Rao's first novel, Kanthapura. The key concept governing the subject is that of representation. Since the ‘fictional reality’ of the nation is a much-debated issue, the study examines how history slides into fiction. The book shows how orientalists, nationalists, Marxists, subalternists, and poststructuralists, have all, in their own celebratory ways, used the disenfranchised sub-proletariat in their works. What is found useful in poststructuralist practices, however, is that subaltern identities are imbued with heterogeneity, thus splitting open an authoritarian and reactionary nationalism, and a continuing neo-colonialism.Less
This book focuses on the construction of forms of historical consciousness in narratives, or schools of narrative. The study seeks to underscore what goes behind the writing of ‘true’ and ‘authentic’ histories by treating historical fiction as the literary dimension of nationalist ideology. It traces nationalism from its abstract underpinnings to its concrete manifestation in historical fiction which underwrites the Indian freedom struggle. The construction of identity through mythicized conceptions of India is examined in detail through Raja Rao's first novel, Kanthapura. The key concept governing the subject is that of representation. Since the ‘fictional reality’ of the nation is a much-debated issue, the study examines how history slides into fiction. The book shows how orientalists, nationalists, Marxists, subalternists, and poststructuralists, have all, in their own celebratory ways, used the disenfranchised sub-proletariat in their works. What is found useful in poststructuralist practices, however, is that subaltern identities are imbued with heterogeneity, thus splitting open an authoritarian and reactionary nationalism, and a continuing neo-colonialism.
Richard S. Lowry
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195102123
- eISBN:
- 9780199855087
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195102123.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
As Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens became one of America's first modern celebrities, successfully straddling the conflicts between culture and commerce. Twain manipulated the cultural outlets of his day, ...
More
As Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens became one of America's first modern celebrities, successfully straddling the conflicts between culture and commerce. Twain manipulated the cultural outlets of his day, not only through publication of his diverse novels, but through newspapers, magazines, book reviews, advertising, and his popular performances and readings. This book examines a range of Twain's major works to show how the writer strove to establish his authority over the course of his career. For the author, Samuel Clemens's supreme fiction and most explicitly artful performance was Mark Twain, the fiction that authorized his fiction. The author reconstructs that performance as the moment at which the American Writer emerged as a profession. He gives attention to the historical and cultural context of the Gilded age, from Twain's influential contemporary William Dean Howells to the various genre books that Twain consistently mastered, e.g. travel guidebooks, manuals for boys, and autobiographies. The result is that this book will appeal to both Twain scholars and to scholars and students of nineteenth-century American literature and culture.Less
As Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens became one of America's first modern celebrities, successfully straddling the conflicts between culture and commerce. Twain manipulated the cultural outlets of his day, not only through publication of his diverse novels, but through newspapers, magazines, book reviews, advertising, and his popular performances and readings. This book examines a range of Twain's major works to show how the writer strove to establish his authority over the course of his career. For the author, Samuel Clemens's supreme fiction and most explicitly artful performance was Mark Twain, the fiction that authorized his fiction. The author reconstructs that performance as the moment at which the American Writer emerged as a profession. He gives attention to the historical and cultural context of the Gilded age, from Twain's influential contemporary William Dean Howells to the various genre books that Twain consistently mastered, e.g. travel guidebooks, manuals for boys, and autobiographies. The result is that this book will appeal to both Twain scholars and to scholars and students of nineteenth-century American literature and culture.
Elizabeth R. Napier
- Published in print:
- 1987
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128601
- eISBN:
- 9780191671678
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128601.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This book is an examination of narrative conventions in one of the most popular and controversial of the 18th-century English literary genres. The vogue of the Gothic in the latter decades of the ...
More
This book is an examination of narrative conventions in one of the most popular and controversial of the 18th-century English literary genres. The vogue of the Gothic in the latter decades of the 18th century, its treatment by important critics such as Coleridge, and its distinctiveness as a genre, makes its study central to an understanding of 18th-century culture, of literary genre and popular literature, and of the problems surrounding attempts to judge quality in a literary work. The English Gothic novel, moreover, has attracted renewed attention from modern critics, who have argued its importance in mirroring the late 18th century's discomfort with the political, psychological, and sexual climate of the times. This book challenges such views, suggesting that the instability of the form may be more successfully addressed through a study of generic structure and the relationship of the Gothic to the designs of the fictional works that preceded it.Less
This book is an examination of narrative conventions in one of the most popular and controversial of the 18th-century English literary genres. The vogue of the Gothic in the latter decades of the 18th century, its treatment by important critics such as Coleridge, and its distinctiveness as a genre, makes its study central to an understanding of 18th-century culture, of literary genre and popular literature, and of the problems surrounding attempts to judge quality in a literary work. The English Gothic novel, moreover, has attracted renewed attention from modern critics, who have argued its importance in mirroring the late 18th century's discomfort with the political, psychological, and sexual climate of the times. This book challenges such views, suggesting that the instability of the form may be more successfully addressed through a study of generic structure and the relationship of the Gothic to the designs of the fictional works that preceded it.
Ros Ballaster
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184775
- eISBN:
- 9780191674341
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184775.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
Historicist and feminist accounts of the ‘rise of the novel’ have neglected the phenomenon of the professional woman writer in England prior to the advent of the sentimental novel in the 1740s. This ...
More
Historicist and feminist accounts of the ‘rise of the novel’ have neglected the phenomenon of the professional woman writer in England prior to the advent of the sentimental novel in the 1740s. This book explores the means by which the three leading Tory women novelists of the late 17th and early 18th centuries challenged and reworked both contemporary gender ideologies and generic convention. The seduction plot provided Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, and Eliza Haywood with a vehicle for dramatizing their own appropriation of the ‘masculine’ power of fiction-making. Seduction is employed in these fictions as a metaphor for both novelistic production (the seduction of the reader by the writer) and party political machination (the seduction of the public by the politician). The book also explores the debts early prose fiction owed to French 17th-century models of fiction-writing and argues that Behn, Manley, and Haywood succeed in producing a distinctively ‘English’ and female ‘form’ for the amatory novel.Less
Historicist and feminist accounts of the ‘rise of the novel’ have neglected the phenomenon of the professional woman writer in England prior to the advent of the sentimental novel in the 1740s. This book explores the means by which the three leading Tory women novelists of the late 17th and early 18th centuries challenged and reworked both contemporary gender ideologies and generic convention. The seduction plot provided Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, and Eliza Haywood with a vehicle for dramatizing their own appropriation of the ‘masculine’ power of fiction-making. Seduction is employed in these fictions as a metaphor for both novelistic production (the seduction of the reader by the writer) and party political machination (the seduction of the public by the politician). The book also explores the debts early prose fiction owed to French 17th-century models of fiction-writing and argues that Behn, Manley, and Haywood succeed in producing a distinctively ‘English’ and female ‘form’ for the amatory novel.
Con Coroneos
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198187363
- eISBN:
- 9780191674716
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187363.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, European Literature
Recent literary and cultural criticism has taken a spatial turn. This book locates this development within the opposition between a space of things and a space of words, tracing various aspects of ...
More
Recent literary and cultural criticism has taken a spatial turn. This book locates this development within the opposition between a space of things and a space of words, tracing various aspects of its emergence from the geopolitical idea of ‘closed space’ which developed in the early 20th century to the influence of Saussurean linguistics in contemporary criticism and theory. The focus of the study is the work of Joseph Conrad, in whom the opposition between a space of words and a space of things is strikingly figured. Part I deals with several versions of closed space to raise questions about the relations between geography, language, and interpretation. Part II deals with the agitation around finitude and the limit, and the desperate attempt to discover in the resources of language a means of liberation. Through these ideas the book explores some of the more disreputable, marginal, or unglimpsed elements in modernism — including the rise of spy fiction, anarchist geography, the spiritualist movement, the invention of artificial languages, the history of laughter, and solar energy. Among the figures drawn into dialogue with Conrad are John Buchan, Woolf, Joyce, Peter Kropotkin, René de Saussure (brother of the famous Ferdinand), Henri Bergson, the filmmakers George Méliès and Carol Reed and, in particular, Michel Foucault — this ‘nouvelle cartographe’ as Gilles Deleuze described him — whose anxious negotiation with spatial ideas touches the book's deepest understanding.Less
Recent literary and cultural criticism has taken a spatial turn. This book locates this development within the opposition between a space of things and a space of words, tracing various aspects of its emergence from the geopolitical idea of ‘closed space’ which developed in the early 20th century to the influence of Saussurean linguistics in contemporary criticism and theory. The focus of the study is the work of Joseph Conrad, in whom the opposition between a space of words and a space of things is strikingly figured. Part I deals with several versions of closed space to raise questions about the relations between geography, language, and interpretation. Part II deals with the agitation around finitude and the limit, and the desperate attempt to discover in the resources of language a means of liberation. Through these ideas the book explores some of the more disreputable, marginal, or unglimpsed elements in modernism — including the rise of spy fiction, anarchist geography, the spiritualist movement, the invention of artificial languages, the history of laughter, and solar energy. Among the figures drawn into dialogue with Conrad are John Buchan, Woolf, Joyce, Peter Kropotkin, René de Saussure (brother of the famous Ferdinand), Henri Bergson, the filmmakers George Méliès and Carol Reed and, in particular, Michel Foucault — this ‘nouvelle cartographe’ as Gilles Deleuze described him — whose anxious negotiation with spatial ideas touches the book's deepest understanding.
Simon Blackburn
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199548057
- eISBN:
- 9780191594953
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199548057.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This book is a collection of sixteen chapters written over the last twenty years. They include chapters on quasi-realism and practical reasoning, but range over many other topics, including trust, ...
More
This book is a collection of sixteen chapters written over the last twenty years. They include chapters on quasi-realism and practical reasoning, but range over many other topics, including trust, dilemmas, fiction, semantics, pragmatism, observation, and the nature of reason. This is the first book linking well-known expressivist work on practical reason to the wider concerns of contemporary pragmatism.Less
This book is a collection of sixteen chapters written over the last twenty years. They include chapters on quasi-realism and practical reasoning, but range over many other topics, including trust, dilemmas, fiction, semantics, pragmatism, observation, and the nature of reason. This is the first book linking well-known expressivist work on practical reason to the wider concerns of contemporary pragmatism.
Penny Fielding
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198121800
- eISBN:
- 9780191671319
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198121800.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This book explores the concepts of nationality and culture in the context of 19th-century Scottish fiction, through the writing of Walter Scott, James Hogg, R. L. Stevenson, and Margaret Oliphant. It ...
More
This book explores the concepts of nationality and culture in the context of 19th-century Scottish fiction, through the writing of Walter Scott, James Hogg, R. L. Stevenson, and Margaret Oliphant. It describes the relationship between speech writing as a foundation of the literary construction of a particular national identity, exploring how orality and literacy are figured in 19th-century preoccupations with the definition of ‘culture’. It further examines the importance of romance revival in the ascendancy of the novel and the development of that genre across a century which saw the novel stripped of its female associations and accorded a masculine authority, touching on the sexualization of language in the discourse between women's narrative (oral) and men's narrative (written). The book's importance for literary studies lies in the investigation of some of the consequences of deconstruction. It explores how the speech/writing opposition is open to the influence of social and material forces. Focusing on the writing of Scott, Hogg, Stevenson, and Oliphant, it looks at the conflicts in narratological experiments in Scottish writing, constructions of class and gender, the effects of popular literacy, and the material condition of books as artefacts and commodities. This book offers a broad picture of the interaction of Scottish fiction and modern theoretical thinking, taking its roots from a combination of deconstruction, narrative theory, the history of orality, linguistics, and psychoanalysis.Less
This book explores the concepts of nationality and culture in the context of 19th-century Scottish fiction, through the writing of Walter Scott, James Hogg, R. L. Stevenson, and Margaret Oliphant. It describes the relationship between speech writing as a foundation of the literary construction of a particular national identity, exploring how orality and literacy are figured in 19th-century preoccupations with the definition of ‘culture’. It further examines the importance of romance revival in the ascendancy of the novel and the development of that genre across a century which saw the novel stripped of its female associations and accorded a masculine authority, touching on the sexualization of language in the discourse between women's narrative (oral) and men's narrative (written). The book's importance for literary studies lies in the investigation of some of the consequences of deconstruction. It explores how the speech/writing opposition is open to the influence of social and material forces. Focusing on the writing of Scott, Hogg, Stevenson, and Oliphant, it looks at the conflicts in narratological experiments in Scottish writing, constructions of class and gender, the effects of popular literacy, and the material condition of books as artefacts and commodities. This book offers a broad picture of the interaction of Scottish fiction and modern theoretical thinking, taking its roots from a combination of deconstruction, narrative theory, the history of orality, linguistics, and psychoanalysis.
Ellen Gruber Garvey
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108224
- eISBN:
- 9780199855070
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108224.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This chapter begins with a discussion of how television commercials have continued to sprawl into written fiction in ways more familiar from the 1890s. It then describes how advertising, as a product ...
More
This chapter begins with a discussion of how television commercials have continued to sprawl into written fiction in ways more familiar from the 1890s. It then describes how advertising, as a product of and promoter of new technologies, encouraged readers to see mass-produced products as not just compatible with, but even the material for, constructing their unique individuality. Manufacturers also learned to appropriate the technologies of fiction, as well as of transportation and mass manufacture, to sell more goods.Less
This chapter begins with a discussion of how television commercials have continued to sprawl into written fiction in ways more familiar from the 1890s. It then describes how advertising, as a product of and promoter of new technologies, encouraged readers to see mass-produced products as not just compatible with, but even the material for, constructing their unique individuality. Manufacturers also learned to appropriate the technologies of fiction, as well as of transportation and mass manufacture, to sell more goods.
Nicholas Dames
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199208968
- eISBN:
- 9780191695759
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199208968.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
How did the Victorians read novels? The author answers that deceptively simple question by revealing a now-forgotten range of nineteenth-century theories of the novel, a range based in a study of ...
More
How did the Victorians read novels? The author answers that deceptively simple question by revealing a now-forgotten range of nineteenth-century theories of the novel, a range based in a study of human physiology during the act of reading. He demonstrates the ways in which the Victorians thought they read, and uncovers surprising responses to the question of what might have transpired in the minds and bodies of readers of Victorian fiction. His detailed studies of novel critics who were also interested in neurological science, combined with readings of novels by Thackeray, Eliot, Meredith, and Gissing, propose a vision of the Victorian novel-reader as far from the quietly immersed being we now imagine — as instead a reader whose nervous system was addressed, attacked, and soothed by authors newly aware of the neural operations of their public. Rich in unexpected intersections, from the British response to Wagnerian opera to the birth of speed-reading in the late nineteenth century, this book challenges our assumptions about what novel reading once did, and still does, to the individual reader, and provides new answers to the question of how novels influenced a culture's way of reading, responding, and feeling.Less
How did the Victorians read novels? The author answers that deceptively simple question by revealing a now-forgotten range of nineteenth-century theories of the novel, a range based in a study of human physiology during the act of reading. He demonstrates the ways in which the Victorians thought they read, and uncovers surprising responses to the question of what might have transpired in the minds and bodies of readers of Victorian fiction. His detailed studies of novel critics who were also interested in neurological science, combined with readings of novels by Thackeray, Eliot, Meredith, and Gissing, propose a vision of the Victorian novel-reader as far from the quietly immersed being we now imagine — as instead a reader whose nervous system was addressed, attacked, and soothed by authors newly aware of the neural operations of their public. Rich in unexpected intersections, from the British response to Wagnerian opera to the birth of speed-reading in the late nineteenth century, this book challenges our assumptions about what novel reading once did, and still does, to the individual reader, and provides new answers to the question of how novels influenced a culture's way of reading, responding, and feeling.
Janet Gallingani Casey
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195338959
- eISBN:
- 9780199867103
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338959.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This book reconceptualizes American modernity by focusing on rurality and women. It challenges the notion of the city as the privileged site of modern experience, arguing that rurality—urbanity’s ...
More
This book reconceptualizes American modernity by focusing on rurality and women. It challenges the notion of the city as the privileged site of modern experience, arguing that rurality—urbanity’s opposite, frequently associated with nostalgia and feminine sentimentality—was a fruitful geographic and psychic location for registering women’s perceptions of the modern. As its title implies, however, it is less about the empirical facts of farm life than about its abstractions—the idea of rurality, and the ways in which women were positioned, by themselves and others, in reference to it. Attending closely to language, images, and figurative connections, it demonstrates the theoretical importance of rurality to the imaginative construction of American modernity and modernism, and asserts that women had a special stake in that relation. To that end, it considers idea(l)s of women and rurality across a broad field of discourses and representational arenas, including social theory, periodical literature, literary criticism, photography, and, especially, women’s rural fiction (“low” and “high”). It engages such diverse subjects as eugenics, advertising, the literary prize culture of the 1920s, and the role of the camera in defining women as modern. It also relies on substantial archival research, and explores at length an underrecognized periodical, The Farmer’s Wife, which was the single nationally distributed farm periodical for women in the twentieth century. Ultimately, the book’s aim is to articulate an alternative mode of American modernism that had special meaning and appeal for women, and to show how that mode clearly responded to prevalent attitudes about agrarianism, modernity, and gender in the culture at large.Less
This book reconceptualizes American modernity by focusing on rurality and women. It challenges the notion of the city as the privileged site of modern experience, arguing that rurality—urbanity’s opposite, frequently associated with nostalgia and feminine sentimentality—was a fruitful geographic and psychic location for registering women’s perceptions of the modern. As its title implies, however, it is less about the empirical facts of farm life than about its abstractions—the idea of rurality, and the ways in which women were positioned, by themselves and others, in reference to it. Attending closely to language, images, and figurative connections, it demonstrates the theoretical importance of rurality to the imaginative construction of American modernity and modernism, and asserts that women had a special stake in that relation. To that end, it considers idea(l)s of women and rurality across a broad field of discourses and representational arenas, including social theory, periodical literature, literary criticism, photography, and, especially, women’s rural fiction (“low” and “high”). It engages such diverse subjects as eugenics, advertising, the literary prize culture of the 1920s, and the role of the camera in defining women as modern. It also relies on substantial archival research, and explores at length an underrecognized periodical, The Farmer’s Wife, which was the single nationally distributed farm periodical for women in the twentieth century. Ultimately, the book’s aim is to articulate an alternative mode of American modernism that had special meaning and appeal for women, and to show how that mode clearly responded to prevalent attitudes about agrarianism, modernity, and gender in the culture at large.
J. A. Burrow
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112938
- eISBN:
- 9780191670879
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112938.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
Langland's Piers Plowman is a profoundly Christian poem, which nevertheless has enjoyed a wide general appeal. Readers – both religious and non-religious – have been drawn by the power of Langland's ...
More
Langland's Piers Plowman is a profoundly Christian poem, which nevertheless has enjoyed a wide general appeal. Readers – both religious and non-religious – have been drawn by the power of Langland's fictive imagination, the rich variety of imaginary worlds in his great dream poem. This book examines the construction of the ten dreams which make up the B Text of Piers Plowman, and explores the relation of these dream-fictions to those realities with which the poet was chiefly preoccupied. This relationship is discussed under three main headings: ‘fictions of the divided mind’, in which the poet's mixed feelings about matters such as the value of learning find expression in imagined scenes and actions; ‘fictions of history’, in which the main events of salvation history are relived in the parallel worlds of dream; and ‘fictions of the self’, in which Langland's doubtful sense of his own moral standing as a man and a poet apparently finds expression. This chapter also addresses the controversial question of ‘autobiographical elements’ in the poem.Less
Langland's Piers Plowman is a profoundly Christian poem, which nevertheless has enjoyed a wide general appeal. Readers – both religious and non-religious – have been drawn by the power of Langland's fictive imagination, the rich variety of imaginary worlds in his great dream poem. This book examines the construction of the ten dreams which make up the B Text of Piers Plowman, and explores the relation of these dream-fictions to those realities with which the poet was chiefly preoccupied. This relationship is discussed under three main headings: ‘fictions of the divided mind’, in which the poet's mixed feelings about matters such as the value of learning find expression in imagined scenes and actions; ‘fictions of history’, in which the main events of salvation history are relived in the parallel worlds of dream; and ‘fictions of the self’, in which Langland's doubtful sense of his own moral standing as a man and a poet apparently finds expression. This chapter also addresses the controversial question of ‘autobiographical elements’ in the poem.
Jane Wood
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198187608
- eISBN:
- 9780191674723
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187608.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
In what was once described as ‘the century of nerves’, a fascination with the mysterious processes governing physical and psychological states was shared by medical and fiction writers alike. This ...
More
In what was once described as ‘the century of nerves’, a fascination with the mysterious processes governing physical and psychological states was shared by medical and fiction writers alike. This elegant study offers an integrated analysis of how medicine and literature figured the connection between the body and the mind. The book looks at some of the century's most influential neurological and physiological theories, and gives readings of both major and relatively neglected fictions — a range which includes work by Charlotte Brontë and George MacDonald, George Eliot and Wilkie Collins, Thomas Hardy and George Gissing. Stepping into an already lively area of interdisciplinary debate, this book is distinguished by its recognition of the intellectual and imaginative force of both discourses: it extends our understanding of the interaction between science and literature in the wider culture of the period.Less
In what was once described as ‘the century of nerves’, a fascination with the mysterious processes governing physical and psychological states was shared by medical and fiction writers alike. This elegant study offers an integrated analysis of how medicine and literature figured the connection between the body and the mind. The book looks at some of the century's most influential neurological and physiological theories, and gives readings of both major and relatively neglected fictions — a range which includes work by Charlotte Brontë and George MacDonald, George Eliot and Wilkie Collins, Thomas Hardy and George Gissing. Stepping into an already lively area of interdisciplinary debate, this book is distinguished by its recognition of the intellectual and imaginative force of both discourses: it extends our understanding of the interaction between science and literature in the wider culture of the period.
Robert Mighall
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199262182
- eISBN:
- 9780191698835
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199262182.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This book is a full-length study of Victorian Gothic fiction. Combining original readings of familiar texts with historical sources, this book is a historicist survey of 19th-century Gothic ...
More
This book is a full-length study of Victorian Gothic fiction. Combining original readings of familiar texts with historical sources, this book is a historicist survey of 19th-century Gothic writing—from Dickens to Stoker, Wilkie Collins to Conan Doyle, through European travelogues, sexological textbooks, ecclesiastic histories and pamphlets on the perils of self-abuse. Critics have thus far tended to concentrate on specific angles of Gothic writing (gender or race), or the belief that the Gothic ‘returned’ at the so-called fin de siècle. By contrast, this book demonstrates how the Gothic mode was active throughout the Victorian period, and provides historical explanations for its development from the late 18th century, through the ‘Urban Gothic’ fictions of the mid-Victorian period, the ‘Suburban Gothic’ of the Sensation vogue, through to the somatic horrors of Stevenson, Machen, Stoker, and Doyle at the century' close. The book challenges the psychological approach to Gothic fiction that currently prevails, demonstrating the importance of geographical, historical, and discursive factors that have been largely neglected by critics, and employing a variety of original sources to demonstrate the contexts of Gothic fiction and explain its development in the Victorian period.Less
This book is a full-length study of Victorian Gothic fiction. Combining original readings of familiar texts with historical sources, this book is a historicist survey of 19th-century Gothic writing—from Dickens to Stoker, Wilkie Collins to Conan Doyle, through European travelogues, sexological textbooks, ecclesiastic histories and pamphlets on the perils of self-abuse. Critics have thus far tended to concentrate on specific angles of Gothic writing (gender or race), or the belief that the Gothic ‘returned’ at the so-called fin de siècle. By contrast, this book demonstrates how the Gothic mode was active throughout the Victorian period, and provides historical explanations for its development from the late 18th century, through the ‘Urban Gothic’ fictions of the mid-Victorian period, the ‘Suburban Gothic’ of the Sensation vogue, through to the somatic horrors of Stevenson, Machen, Stoker, and Doyle at the century' close. The book challenges the psychological approach to Gothic fiction that currently prevails, demonstrating the importance of geographical, historical, and discursive factors that have been largely neglected by critics, and employing a variety of original sources to demonstrate the contexts of Gothic fiction and explain its development in the Victorian period.
Philip J. M. Sturgess
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119548
- eISBN:
- 9780191671173
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119548.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Defining narrativity as the enabling force of narrative, this is a full-length exploration of the concept in fiction. It develops the notion of a ‘logic of narrativity’, and by this means contributes ...
More
Defining narrativity as the enabling force of narrative, this is a full-length exploration of the concept in fiction. It develops the notion of a ‘logic of narrativity’, and by this means contributes a new critical strategy to the field of narrative theory. The book also takes issue with a number of critical approaches which have in recent years acquired near-orthodox status in the matter of textual interpretation. Most prominent among these approaches are deconstruction and a particular form of Marxist criticism. The author's own theoretical claims are substantiated by readings of major 20th-century novels by Conrad, Joyce, Flann O'Brien, and Arthur Koestler, and the book concludes with an analysis of an earlier narrative, Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent, which illustrates the wider premises of the theory and its applications.Less
Defining narrativity as the enabling force of narrative, this is a full-length exploration of the concept in fiction. It develops the notion of a ‘logic of narrativity’, and by this means contributes a new critical strategy to the field of narrative theory. The book also takes issue with a number of critical approaches which have in recent years acquired near-orthodox status in the matter of textual interpretation. Most prominent among these approaches are deconstruction and a particular form of Marxist criticism. The author's own theoretical claims are substantiated by readings of major 20th-century novels by Conrad, Joyce, Flann O'Brien, and Arthur Koestler, and the book concludes with an analysis of an earlier narrative, Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent, which illustrates the wider premises of the theory and its applications.
Mohd Asaduddin and Anuradha Ghosh (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198075936
- eISBN:
- 9780199081851
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198075936.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Similar to other fine arts' genres, novels and films evolved the way they did due to certain conditions of production, and the way they developed in different cultures was shaped by the governing ...
More
Similar to other fine arts' genres, novels and films evolved the way they did due to certain conditions of production, and the way they developed in different cultures was shaped by the governing conventions surrounding them. When discussing films, one cannot overlook the aspect of entertainment. The experience of reading a novel definitely differs from the experience of watching a film. This process is what defies easy translation into film. The film and the novel are intimately connected, as seen in the sheer number of films based on novels. In the case of India, the history of the relationship between cinema and literature has been an integral one. This book explores the mutual relationship between film and fiction in India, focusing on legendary writers Rabindranath Tagore and Premchand and noted filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Drawing upon the insights of leading academics and emerging scholars in the field, it investigates the complex process of film adaptation of the novel. The book looks at three Ray adaptations of Tagore: Teen Kanya (1961), Charulata (1964), and Ghare Baire (1984), as well as two films based on short stories by Premchand—‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi’ (1977) and ‘Sadgati’ (1981). In addition, it examines Ray's adaptation of Tagore's ‘Noshto Neerh’, his rendering of history, and Premchand's ‘Sadgati’ in terms of Ray's handling of the Dalit question.Less
Similar to other fine arts' genres, novels and films evolved the way they did due to certain conditions of production, and the way they developed in different cultures was shaped by the governing conventions surrounding them. When discussing films, one cannot overlook the aspect of entertainment. The experience of reading a novel definitely differs from the experience of watching a film. This process is what defies easy translation into film. The film and the novel are intimately connected, as seen in the sheer number of films based on novels. In the case of India, the history of the relationship between cinema and literature has been an integral one. This book explores the mutual relationship between film and fiction in India, focusing on legendary writers Rabindranath Tagore and Premchand and noted filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Drawing upon the insights of leading academics and emerging scholars in the field, it investigates the complex process of film adaptation of the novel. The book looks at three Ray adaptations of Tagore: Teen Kanya (1961), Charulata (1964), and Ghare Baire (1984), as well as two films based on short stories by Premchand—‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi’ (1977) and ‘Sadgati’ (1981). In addition, it examines Ray's adaptation of Tagore's ‘Noshto Neerh’, his rendering of history, and Premchand's ‘Sadgati’ in terms of Ray's handling of the Dalit question.
