Ian Small
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198122418
- eISBN:
- 9780191671418
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198122418.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book studies changes in the practice of literary criticism in the nineteenth century and locates those changes within wider movements in British intellectual culture. The growth of knowledge and ...
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This book studies changes in the practice of literary criticism in the nineteenth century and locates those changes within wider movements in British intellectual culture. The growth of knowledge and its subsequent institutionalization in universities produced new forms of intellectual authority. This book examines these processes in a wide variety of disciplines, including economics, historiography, sociology, psychology, and philosophical aesthetics, and explores their impact upon literary criticism. Its thesis is that the work of late nineteenth-century writers such as Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde can be best understood in terms of their engagement with, and reaction to, these general intellectual changes, a view which in its turn reveals the seriousness of their work.Less
This book studies changes in the practice of literary criticism in the nineteenth century and locates those changes within wider movements in British intellectual culture. The growth of knowledge and its subsequent institutionalization in universities produced new forms of intellectual authority. This book examines these processes in a wide variety of disciplines, including economics, historiography, sociology, psychology, and philosophical aesthetics, and explores their impact upon literary criticism. Its thesis is that the work of late nineteenth-century writers such as Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde can be best understood in terms of their engagement with, and reaction to, these general intellectual changes, a view which in its turn reveals the seriousness of their work.
Ann Jefferson
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263181
- eISBN:
- 9780191734595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263181.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Biography seemed to have little to offer in comparison to literature itself. From this perspective, it is perceived as being at best marginal to literature, and at worst as antithetical to the ...
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Biography seemed to have little to offer in comparison to literature itself. From this perspective, it is perceived as being at best marginal to literature, and at worst as antithetical to the literary. This negative relation is predominant in the French tradition, where writers themselves have repeatedly and vehemently protested against what they perceived as extraneous imposition of the ‘life’ onto the literary ‘work’. This chapter addresses whether biography has any critical validity in the study of literary texts, when their prime concern is considered by the critical parti pris and by their authors to be aesthetic. In it, the focus is on Sainte-Beuve, the founder and exemplar of the biological approach to literary criticism. The chapter determines whether and how his method acquired general critical validity, what its critical presuppositions were, and how it conceived of literature and the literary.Less
Biography seemed to have little to offer in comparison to literature itself. From this perspective, it is perceived as being at best marginal to literature, and at worst as antithetical to the literary. This negative relation is predominant in the French tradition, where writers themselves have repeatedly and vehemently protested against what they perceived as extraneous imposition of the ‘life’ onto the literary ‘work’. This chapter addresses whether biography has any critical validity in the study of literary texts, when their prime concern is considered by the critical parti pris and by their authors to be aesthetic. In it, the focus is on Sainte-Beuve, the founder and exemplar of the biological approach to literary criticism. The chapter determines whether and how his method acquired general critical validity, what its critical presuppositions were, and how it conceived of literature and the literary.
Howard Felperin
- Published in print:
- 1986
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128960
- eISBN:
- 9780191671746
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128960.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The past two decades have seen swift and radical change in the way literature is perceived and taught in this country and abroad, as numerous new schools of theory have blossomed, particularly at ...
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The past two decades have seen swift and radical change in the way literature is perceived and taught in this country and abroad, as numerous new schools of theory have blossomed, particularly at Yale, Johns Hopkins, and Cambridge. Intended as an introduction to these new theories, the book offers a balanced and lively overview that steers clear of technicalities as it explains, explores, and occasionally takes issue with the large movements that have followed the so-called ‘practical’ criticism of F. R. Leavis and others. It focuses on the major schools and figures of structuralism, Marxism, and deconstruction, giving a focus on the ideological and methodological issues involved.Less
The past two decades have seen swift and radical change in the way literature is perceived and taught in this country and abroad, as numerous new schools of theory have blossomed, particularly at Yale, Johns Hopkins, and Cambridge. Intended as an introduction to these new theories, the book offers a balanced and lively overview that steers clear of technicalities as it explains, explores, and occasionally takes issue with the large movements that have followed the so-called ‘practical’ criticism of F. R. Leavis and others. It focuses on the major schools and figures of structuralism, Marxism, and deconstruction, giving a focus on the ideological and methodological issues involved.
D. M. Gunn
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- April 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780198263913
- eISBN:
- 9780191601187
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198263910.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This is the fourth of five chapters on the text of the Old Testament, and focuses on the Hebrew prose narrative of the Old Testament. It starts by discussing the various definitions of the term ...
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This is the fourth of five chapters on the text of the Old Testament, and focuses on the Hebrew prose narrative of the Old Testament. It starts by discussing the various definitions of the term narrative (as a mode of discourse; as a vehicle of narrative communication; as definable text) and the difficulties of determining which particular definable biblical texts are narrative texts, and notes that the attempt by the critic–reader to define so simple a thing as the narrative text is fraught with issues that have as much to do with the reader as with the text. The author notes that the title of the chapter and its placement within the ‘text’ part of the division of the book into parts on readers, text, and authors, might suggest a singular objective entity (the text) produced by authors, read by readers, and conceptually separable from both, but that the reality is more complicated. The Old Testament is described as a fuzzy‐edged concept, not a fixed object, and its text not as one but as beyond number; furthermore, the concept is ideologically loaded (i.e. reader‐oriented) and much of the essay is quite specifically not about the (Christian) Old Testament (which is why the hybrid term Hebrew Bible has been used). It is the author's understanding that there is no such thing as the text of the Old Testament apart from its readers and it is in this context that he gives an account (which he labels as partial) of biblical narrative and literary criticism over the past three decades; this is presented as an account not of what is in the biblical narratives, but of what some readers have claimed to find in these texts, and how they have gone about finding it.Less
This is the fourth of five chapters on the text of the Old Testament, and focuses on the Hebrew prose narrative of the Old Testament. It starts by discussing the various definitions of the term narrative (as a mode of discourse; as a vehicle of narrative communication; as definable text) and the difficulties of determining which particular definable biblical texts are narrative texts, and notes that the attempt by the critic–reader to define so simple a thing as the narrative text is fraught with issues that have as much to do with the reader as with the text. The author notes that the title of the chapter and its placement within the ‘text’ part of the division of the book into parts on readers, text, and authors, might suggest a singular objective entity (the text) produced by authors, read by readers, and conceptually separable from both, but that the reality is more complicated. The Old Testament is described as a fuzzy‐edged concept, not a fixed object, and its text not as one but as beyond number; furthermore, the concept is ideologically loaded (i.e. reader‐oriented) and much of the essay is quite specifically not about the (Christian) Old Testament (which is why the hybrid term Hebrew Bible has been used). It is the author's understanding that there is no such thing as the text of the Old Testament apart from its readers and it is in this context that he gives an account (which he labels as partial) of biblical narrative and literary criticism over the past three decades; this is presented as an account not of what is in the biblical narratives, but of what some readers have claimed to find in these texts, and how they have gone about finding it.
Howard Felperin
- Published in print:
- 1986
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128960
- eISBN:
- 9780191671746
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128960.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
In the unlikely event that some Nobel Prize committee of the future decides to honour the discoverers of so anti-humanistic a concept as deconstruction, it will be faced with more than the usual ...
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In the unlikely event that some Nobel Prize committee of the future decides to honour the discoverers of so anti-humanistic a concept as deconstruction, it will be faced with more than the usual difficulties in determining where to bestow the award. The search for the founder or originator of the discourse of deconstruction, flagrantly post-modernist and avant-garde as it is, would discover, upon examination of its major texts, a number of earlier candidates already nominated as worthy of the honour. The short-list of nominees might well have to stretch back behind the deconstructors of the present to include those relatively recent inquisitors of language who underwrite their work. While Nobel Prizes are often awarded belatedly or retrospectively, such an infinite regress of likely candidates for the dubious title of ‘founding father of deconstruction’ would make something of a mockery or a nonsense of the committee's august deliberations. This chapter discusses literary theory and literary criticism, structuralism, Marxism, and the nature of language and textuality in relation to the Nobel Prize.Less
In the unlikely event that some Nobel Prize committee of the future decides to honour the discoverers of so anti-humanistic a concept as deconstruction, it will be faced with more than the usual difficulties in determining where to bestow the award. The search for the founder or originator of the discourse of deconstruction, flagrantly post-modernist and avant-garde as it is, would discover, upon examination of its major texts, a number of earlier candidates already nominated as worthy of the honour. The short-list of nominees might well have to stretch back behind the deconstructors of the present to include those relatively recent inquisitors of language who underwrite their work. While Nobel Prizes are often awarded belatedly or retrospectively, such an infinite regress of likely candidates for the dubious title of ‘founding father of deconstruction’ would make something of a mockery or a nonsense of the committee's august deliberations. This chapter discusses literary theory and literary criticism, structuralism, Marxism, and the nature of language and textuality in relation to the Nobel Prize.
Lesnik-Oberstein Karín
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119982
- eISBN:
- 9780191671272
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119982.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Many self-proclaimed book-centred critics of children's fiction retain as their guiding star the ‘real child’, based on their reliance on a distinct literary discourse determined by adult readers and ...
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Many self-proclaimed book-centred critics of children's fiction retain as their guiding star the ‘real child’, based on their reliance on a distinct literary discourse determined by adult readers and critics, whom they select. However, there are some critics who explore, in one way or another, the borders of the systems of knowledge of the ‘child’. In approaching these borders, they also address the basis of those discourses of adult literary criticism which share the conviction of the redemptive value of literature, and its connections with knowable readers. This chapter turns to children's literature critics who attempt to participate in the adult literary criticism of narratology, reader-response criticism, and deconstruction. In order to consider these ideas, it focuses on writings on children's literature criticism by Barbara Wall, Peter Hunt, and Jacqueline Rose. All three are prominent critics who have been involved with the most recent debates within children's literature criticism.Less
Many self-proclaimed book-centred critics of children's fiction retain as their guiding star the ‘real child’, based on their reliance on a distinct literary discourse determined by adult readers and critics, whom they select. However, there are some critics who explore, in one way or another, the borders of the systems of knowledge of the ‘child’. In approaching these borders, they also address the basis of those discourses of adult literary criticism which share the conviction of the redemptive value of literature, and its connections with knowable readers. This chapter turns to children's literature critics who attempt to participate in the adult literary criticism of narratology, reader-response criticism, and deconstruction. In order to consider these ideas, it focuses on writings on children's literature criticism by Barbara Wall, Peter Hunt, and Jacqueline Rose. All three are prominent critics who have been involved with the most recent debates within children's literature criticism.
Michael Patrick Murphy
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195333527
- eISBN:
- 9780199868896
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333527.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
In addition to laying out a general groundwork for the Catholic imagination as a critical lens—and suggesting a variety of ways that the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar aids critics in articulating ...
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In addition to laying out a general groundwork for the Catholic imagination as a critical lens—and suggesting a variety of ways that the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar aids critics in articulating such a theological vision—the chapter also attempts to locate the particular phenomena of postmodernism and deconstruction within the intersection of theology and narrative art. Balthasar anticipates the tendency of current critical theory to privilege and emphasize the amorphous breadth of both linguistic and cultural expression; and he anticipates the critical tension between those who read Catholicism as theological truth and those that might read Catholicism as a “fluctuating signifier,” as a cultural and/or literary text. Under this general theme, a dialog is opened with such diverse critics as William Lynch, Paul Giles, Michel De Certeau, and Jacques Derrida. Like them, Balthasar's theology plots a route for appreciating the aesthetic complexity and theological possibility of a broadly canvassed intertextuality and interdisciplinarity. However, Balthasar's program also defends the critical uniqueness of certain theological commitments (e.g., the transcendentals, the Incarnation, and the trinitarian structure of being) and looks to the arts to demonstrate the formal expression and aesthetic span of these phenomena. The chapter concludes with the proposition that it is the recognition of these essential questions that both challenge and aid the articulation of a Catholic imagination and that a turn to representative work in literature, poetry, and film will aid in such an articulation.Less
In addition to laying out a general groundwork for the Catholic imagination as a critical lens—and suggesting a variety of ways that the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar aids critics in articulating such a theological vision—the chapter also attempts to locate the particular phenomena of postmodernism and deconstruction within the intersection of theology and narrative art. Balthasar anticipates the tendency of current critical theory to privilege and emphasize the amorphous breadth of both linguistic and cultural expression; and he anticipates the critical tension between those who read Catholicism as theological truth and those that might read Catholicism as a “fluctuating signifier,” as a cultural and/or literary text. Under this general theme, a dialog is opened with such diverse critics as William Lynch, Paul Giles, Michel De Certeau, and Jacques Derrida. Like them, Balthasar's theology plots a route for appreciating the aesthetic complexity and theological possibility of a broadly canvassed intertextuality and interdisciplinarity. However, Balthasar's program also defends the critical uniqueness of certain theological commitments (e.g., the transcendentals, the Incarnation, and the trinitarian structure of being) and looks to the arts to demonstrate the formal expression and aesthetic span of these phenomena. The chapter concludes with the proposition that it is the recognition of these essential questions that both challenge and aid the articulation of a Catholic imagination and that a turn to representative work in literature, poetry, and film will aid in such an articulation.
Bernard Bergonzi
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112617
- eISBN:
- 9780191670817
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112617.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the highs and lows of the academy over the years, noting that academic literary study was divided between those who saw it as inevitably involved with making judgments and ...
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This chapter discusses the highs and lows of the academy over the years, noting that academic literary study was divided between those who saw it as inevitably involved with making judgments and those who did not. One of the conclusions made at the end of the chapter is that the book has been a commodity ever since the moment it was invented. Literary criticism is now just one more academic specialism that is produced and consumed within the academy.Less
This chapter discusses the highs and lows of the academy over the years, noting that academic literary study was divided between those who saw it as inevitably involved with making judgments and those who did not. One of the conclusions made at the end of the chapter is that the book has been a commodity ever since the moment it was invented. Literary criticism is now just one more academic specialism that is produced and consumed within the academy.
Howard Felperin
- Published in print:
- 1986
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128960
- eISBN:
- 9780191671746
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128960.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Theory will turn out to be only another practice, from which there can be no escape or transcendence. Ironically, it was F. R. Leavis himself who recognized this back in the 1930s when he refused, ...
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Theory will turn out to be only another practice, from which there can be no escape or transcendence. Ironically, it was F. R. Leavis himself who recognized this back in the 1930s when he refused, under challenge by Rene Wellek, to theorize his own practice. He was right to do so, not for his mock-humble pretext that he had better leave it to philosophers to do what he, as a mere practitioner, could not do. He was right, because the philosophers cannot do it either. For since Leavis's time, the philosophers themselves, so long preoccupied with ‘ordinary’ language and establishing a first philosophy of it, have grown more humble. That first- or ground-philosophy, so long sought as a kind of master-key to all understanding, has come increasingly to be regarded as an illusion, an institutional mirage or myth, and the work done toward it as more ‘literature’. This chapter discusses literary theory and literary criticism, the concept of Leavisism, the transition from philology to theory, the politics of interpretation, deconstruction, and structuralism and poststructuralism.Less
Theory will turn out to be only another practice, from which there can be no escape or transcendence. Ironically, it was F. R. Leavis himself who recognized this back in the 1930s when he refused, under challenge by Rene Wellek, to theorize his own practice. He was right to do so, not for his mock-humble pretext that he had better leave it to philosophers to do what he, as a mere practitioner, could not do. He was right, because the philosophers cannot do it either. For since Leavis's time, the philosophers themselves, so long preoccupied with ‘ordinary’ language and establishing a first philosophy of it, have grown more humble. That first- or ground-philosophy, so long sought as a kind of master-key to all understanding, has come increasingly to be regarded as an illusion, an institutional mirage or myth, and the work done toward it as more ‘literature’. This chapter discusses literary theory and literary criticism, the concept of Leavisism, the transition from philology to theory, the politics of interpretation, deconstruction, and structuralism and poststructuralism.
Christopher Hilliard
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199695171
- eISBN:
- 9780199949946
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695171.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter moves beyond Britain to examine the Scrutiny movement's fortunes overseas. In the late 1940s and 1950s, the Kenyon School of English and Eric Bentley's anthology for American readers ...
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This chapter moves beyond Britain to examine the Scrutiny movement's fortunes overseas. In the late 1940s and 1950s, the Kenyon School of English and Eric Bentley's anthology for American readers drew Scrutiny into efforts to enshrine criticism (and in particular the New Criticism) in American universities’ English programmes. University English departments were reorganized along Leavisian lines in Ceylon in the 1940s and Australia in the 1960s. Australian literature was not a major concern for Samuel Goldberg, the architect of the ‘Leavisite’ experiment at the University of Sydney in the 1960s, but Goldberg's plans were nevertheless based on an interpretation of colonial culture that borrowed heavily from F. R. Leavis and Denys Thompson's early work. The cultural or ‘sociological’ interests of early Scrutiny writings would also function as models or suggestions for ways of writing about colonial or national literary cultures in contexts as various as India, New Zealand, and Scotland.Less
This chapter moves beyond Britain to examine the Scrutiny movement's fortunes overseas. In the late 1940s and 1950s, the Kenyon School of English and Eric Bentley's anthology for American readers drew Scrutiny into efforts to enshrine criticism (and in particular the New Criticism) in American universities’ English programmes. University English departments were reorganized along Leavisian lines in Ceylon in the 1940s and Australia in the 1960s. Australian literature was not a major concern for Samuel Goldberg, the architect of the ‘Leavisite’ experiment at the University of Sydney in the 1960s, but Goldberg's plans were nevertheless based on an interpretation of colonial culture that borrowed heavily from F. R. Leavis and Denys Thompson's early work. The cultural or ‘sociological’ interests of early Scrutiny writings would also function as models or suggestions for ways of writing about colonial or national literary cultures in contexts as various as India, New Zealand, and Scotland.
Roland Enmarch and Verena M. Lepper (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780197265420
- eISBN:
- 9780191760471
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265420.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book reviews the numerous developments in the theoretical framework of interpretation that have taken place over recent years. The application of more theoretically informed approaches to the ...
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This book reviews the numerous developments in the theoretical framework of interpretation that have taken place over recent years. The application of more theoretically informed approaches to the ancient literary corpus, and a more detailed analysis of context, form, and reception, have fundamentally challenged the interpretative paradigms that formerly held sway. No consensus on interpretative stance has yet emerged, and in this volume many of the foremost researchers in the field examine the overall state of work on the subject. The chapters in the present volume are intended to contribute to this development of different approaches in their application to real Egyptian texts. No single overarching theoretical framework underlies these contributions; instead they represent a multiplicity of perspectives. The range of chapters includes textual criticism; literary criticism; the social role of literature; reception theory; and the treatment of newly discovered literary texts. All contributions centre on the problems and potentials of studying Egyptian literature in a theoretically informed manner. Although major difficulties remain in interpreting a literature preserved only fragmentarily, this volume demonstrates the ongoing vitality of current Egyptological approaches to this problem. This volume also incorporates a broader cross-cultural and comparative element, providing overviews of connections and discontinuities with biblical, Classical, and Mesopotamian literatures, in order to address the comparative contexts of Ancient Egyptian literature.Less
This book reviews the numerous developments in the theoretical framework of interpretation that have taken place over recent years. The application of more theoretically informed approaches to the ancient literary corpus, and a more detailed analysis of context, form, and reception, have fundamentally challenged the interpretative paradigms that formerly held sway. No consensus on interpretative stance has yet emerged, and in this volume many of the foremost researchers in the field examine the overall state of work on the subject. The chapters in the present volume are intended to contribute to this development of different approaches in their application to real Egyptian texts. No single overarching theoretical framework underlies these contributions; instead they represent a multiplicity of perspectives. The range of chapters includes textual criticism; literary criticism; the social role of literature; reception theory; and the treatment of newly discovered literary texts. All contributions centre on the problems and potentials of studying Egyptian literature in a theoretically informed manner. Although major difficulties remain in interpreting a literature preserved only fragmentarily, this volume demonstrates the ongoing vitality of current Egyptological approaches to this problem. This volume also incorporates a broader cross-cultural and comparative element, providing overviews of connections and discontinuities with biblical, Classical, and Mesopotamian literatures, in order to address the comparative contexts of Ancient Egyptian literature.
Jerome J. McGann
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198117506
- eISBN:
- 9780191670961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198117506.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The first chapter demonstrates the fundamental importance of textual studies to hermeneutics generally and to the specific act of criticism in particular. It assumes that literary study surrendered ...
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The first chapter demonstrates the fundamental importance of textual studies to hermeneutics generally and to the specific act of criticism in particular. It assumes that literary study surrendered some of its most powerful interpretive tools when it allowed textual criticism and bibliography to be regarded as ‘preliminary’ rather than integral to the study of literary work. It argues that the non-integral view of textual criticism and bibliography is historically explicable. It also attempts both an exposition of this view of textual criticism and bibliography as well as a critique of its limits.Less
The first chapter demonstrates the fundamental importance of textual studies to hermeneutics generally and to the specific act of criticism in particular. It assumes that literary study surrendered some of its most powerful interpretive tools when it allowed textual criticism and bibliography to be regarded as ‘preliminary’ rather than integral to the study of literary work. It argues that the non-integral view of textual criticism and bibliography is historically explicable. It also attempts both an exposition of this view of textual criticism and bibliography as well as a critique of its limits.
Howard Felperin
- Published in print:
- 1986
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128960
- eISBN:
- 9780191671746
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128960.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Marxist literary criticism will be present as long as its raisons d'etre, literature and the poor, are present. This is not offered as prophecy or aphorism, but historical observation. For whatever ...
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Marxist literary criticism will be present as long as its raisons d'etre, literature and the poor, are present. This is not offered as prophecy or aphorism, but historical observation. For whatever the outcome of any social revolution that might take place — be it slow or sudden, abortive or apocalyptic — Marxism itself will persist, either as a newly established political system or an oppositional ideology as at present, and in either case, so will Marxist criticism. For all the methodological novelty of its recent manifestations, Marxist criticism is by far the oldest of the avant-garde movements currently vying for place, and that seems reason enough to deal with it first. Moreover, the problems that beset it at present seem to have done so from its inception in Marx's own sporadic comments upon literature, and these problems have as much to do with the elusive reserve of its literary object as with the questionable validity, in view of the uncanny resilience of capitalism to survive repeated crises, of its theory of history.Less
Marxist literary criticism will be present as long as its raisons d'etre, literature and the poor, are present. This is not offered as prophecy or aphorism, but historical observation. For whatever the outcome of any social revolution that might take place — be it slow or sudden, abortive or apocalyptic — Marxism itself will persist, either as a newly established political system or an oppositional ideology as at present, and in either case, so will Marxist criticism. For all the methodological novelty of its recent manifestations, Marxist criticism is by far the oldest of the avant-garde movements currently vying for place, and that seems reason enough to deal with it first. Moreover, the problems that beset it at present seem to have done so from its inception in Marx's own sporadic comments upon literature, and these problems have as much to do with the elusive reserve of its literary object as with the questionable validity, in view of the uncanny resilience of capitalism to survive repeated crises, of its theory of history.
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 ...
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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.
Ann Jefferson
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199270842
- eISBN:
- 9780191710292
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199270842.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter examines the inherently biographical principles of the literary criticism of Sainte-Beuve. Sainte-Beuve is credited with being the inventor of modern literary criticism and the chapter ...
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This chapter examines the inherently biographical principles of the literary criticism of Sainte-Beuve. Sainte-Beuve is credited with being the inventor of modern literary criticism and the chapter explores the way in which the biographical perspective of the critic is associated with the new task of identifying the literariness of literature, often expressed in terms of the individual genius of the writer. Literature has therefore to be reinvented with each new critical encounter. Sainte-Beuve's own poetry is read in terms of its presuppositions about its necessary relation to the poet's life. His depictions of poets and poetry itself also imply the need for the biographical perspective of a critical ‘other’. The suggestion is that criticism, with its biographical basis, is better placed to identify literariness than literature itself.Less
This chapter examines the inherently biographical principles of the literary criticism of Sainte-Beuve. Sainte-Beuve is credited with being the inventor of modern literary criticism and the chapter explores the way in which the biographical perspective of the critic is associated with the new task of identifying the literariness of literature, often expressed in terms of the individual genius of the writer. Literature has therefore to be reinvented with each new critical encounter. Sainte-Beuve's own poetry is read in terms of its presuppositions about its necessary relation to the poet's life. His depictions of poets and poetry itself also imply the need for the biographical perspective of a critical ‘other’. The suggestion is that criticism, with its biographical basis, is better placed to identify literariness than literature itself.
Nathan MacDonald
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199546527
- eISBN:
- 9780191720215
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199546527.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
In the present methodological ferment in biblical studies it is necessary to articulate a methodological approach to the study of food in the Old Testament. The methodology outlined is fully ...
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In the present methodological ferment in biblical studies it is necessary to articulate a methodological approach to the study of food in the Old Testament. The methodology outlined is fully responsive to research on the anthropology of food, the literary form of the biblical text and historical-critical biblical scholarship. The necessity of all these aspects is demonstrated through an analysis of work on the Israelite dietary laws in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. For this classical interpretative puzzle Mary Douglas's work, Purity and Danger, has been a decisive turning point. Her analysis has stimulated many biblical scholars, but this has required her own views to be re-articulated in light of closer readings of the text and the work of historical-critical scholarship. The conversation not only shows the need for well informed use of anthropological research, literary analysis and historical-critical scholarship, but also the necessity of moving beyond tired debates between materialists and structuralists, or, in the usual terms of biblical scholarship, diachronic, and synchronic.Less
In the present methodological ferment in biblical studies it is necessary to articulate a methodological approach to the study of food in the Old Testament. The methodology outlined is fully responsive to research on the anthropology of food, the literary form of the biblical text and historical-critical biblical scholarship. The necessity of all these aspects is demonstrated through an analysis of work on the Israelite dietary laws in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. For this classical interpretative puzzle Mary Douglas's work, Purity and Danger, has been a decisive turning point. Her analysis has stimulated many biblical scholars, but this has required her own views to be re-articulated in light of closer readings of the text and the work of historical-critical scholarship. The conversation not only shows the need for well informed use of anthropological research, literary analysis and historical-critical scholarship, but also the necessity of moving beyond tired debates between materialists and structuralists, or, in the usual terms of biblical scholarship, diachronic, and synchronic.
David Robey
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184980
- eISBN:
- 9780191674419
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184980.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter considers the ways in which sounds in Dante's Divine Comedy work. The purpose is to put into their theoretical and literary-critical context the key contributions to the debate of Gian ...
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This chapter considers the ways in which sounds in Dante's Divine Comedy work. The purpose is to put into their theoretical and literary-critical context the key contributions to the debate of Gian Luigi Beccaria and others, by asking how a new view of the Divine Comedy emerged as a result of the impact of formalism, structuralism, and semiotics on the practice of literary criticism in Italy from the 1900s onwards. As theories concerned with the nature of literature and the literary, formalism, structuralism, and semiotics challenged the traditional treatment of Dante's poem, this held out the possibility of remedying its deficiencies through a more extensive consideration of its specifically literary properties. This chapter first considers the critical tradition dominant in Dante studies in Italy before the advent of these theories, then examines the distinctively Italian form of the theories.Less
This chapter considers the ways in which sounds in Dante's Divine Comedy work. The purpose is to put into their theoretical and literary-critical context the key contributions to the debate of Gian Luigi Beccaria and others, by asking how a new view of the Divine Comedy emerged as a result of the impact of formalism, structuralism, and semiotics on the practice of literary criticism in Italy from the 1900s onwards. As theories concerned with the nature of literature and the literary, formalism, structuralism, and semiotics challenged the traditional treatment of Dante's poem, this held out the possibility of remedying its deficiencies through a more extensive consideration of its specifically literary properties. This chapter first considers the critical tradition dominant in Dante studies in Italy before the advent of these theories, then examines the distinctively Italian form of the theories.
Tania Oldenhage
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195150520
- eISBN:
- 9780199834549
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019515052X.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
Moving to the U.S. in the 1970s, Oldenhage discusses the ways in which biblical scholars in America challenged the assumptions of historical criticism and proposed a literary turn in biblical ...
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Moving to the U.S. in the 1970s, Oldenhage discusses the ways in which biblical scholars in America challenged the assumptions of historical criticism and proposed a literary turn in biblical studies. Informed by literary criticism, these scholars started to take seriously the form and language of the parables and turned them from ancient artifacts into artful literature. The focus of the chapter lies on the work of John Dominic Crossan, who in the 1970s was arguably the most influential proponent of a literary approach to the parables. Oldenhage outlines Crossan's hermeneutics by emphasizing his creative engagements with postmodernism as well as his continuing interest in the first historical context of the parables of Jesus.Less
Moving to the U.S. in the 1970s, Oldenhage discusses the ways in which biblical scholars in America challenged the assumptions of historical criticism and proposed a literary turn in biblical studies. Informed by literary criticism, these scholars started to take seriously the form and language of the parables and turned them from ancient artifacts into artful literature. The focus of the chapter lies on the work of John Dominic Crossan, who in the 1970s was arguably the most influential proponent of a literary approach to the parables. Oldenhage outlines Crossan's hermeneutics by emphasizing his creative engagements with postmodernism as well as his continuing interest in the first historical context of the parables of Jesus.
Christopher Hilliard
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199695171
- eISBN:
- 9780199949946
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695171.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This book is a history of the most influential movement in modern British literary criticism. F. R. Leavis and his collaborators on the Cambridge journal Scrutiny in the 1920s and 1930s demonstrated ...
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This book is a history of the most influential movement in modern British literary criticism. F. R. Leavis and his collaborators on the Cambridge journal Scrutiny in the 1920s and 1930s demonstrated compelling ways of reading modernist poetry, Shakespeare, and the ‘texts’ of advertising. Crucially, they offered a way of teaching critical reading, an approach that could be adapted for schools and adult education classes, modelled in radio talks and paperback guides to English Literature, and taken up in universities as far afield as Colombo and Sydney. This book shows how a small critical school turned into a movement with an international reach. It tracks down Leavis's students, analysing the pattern of their social origins and subsequent careers in the context of twentieth-century social change. It shows how teachers transformed Scrutiny approaches as they tried to put them into practice in grammar and secondary modern schools. And it explores the complex, even contradictory politics of the movement. Champions of creative writing and enemies of ‘progressive’ education alike based their arguments on Scrutiny's interpretation of modern culture. ‘Left-Leavisites’ such as Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, and Stuart Hall wrought influential interpretations of social class and popular culture out of arguments with the Scrutiny tradition. This is the first book to examine major figures such as these alongside the hundreds of other teachers and writers in the movement whose names are obscure but who wrestled with the same challenges: how do you approach a baffling poem? How do you uncover what an advertisement is trying to do? How can literature inform our everyday experiences and judgements? What does ‘culture’ mean in modern times?Less
This book is a history of the most influential movement in modern British literary criticism. F. R. Leavis and his collaborators on the Cambridge journal Scrutiny in the 1920s and 1930s demonstrated compelling ways of reading modernist poetry, Shakespeare, and the ‘texts’ of advertising. Crucially, they offered a way of teaching critical reading, an approach that could be adapted for schools and adult education classes, modelled in radio talks and paperback guides to English Literature, and taken up in universities as far afield as Colombo and Sydney. This book shows how a small critical school turned into a movement with an international reach. It tracks down Leavis's students, analysing the pattern of their social origins and subsequent careers in the context of twentieth-century social change. It shows how teachers transformed Scrutiny approaches as they tried to put them into practice in grammar and secondary modern schools. And it explores the complex, even contradictory politics of the movement. Champions of creative writing and enemies of ‘progressive’ education alike based their arguments on Scrutiny's interpretation of modern culture. ‘Left-Leavisites’ such as Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, and Stuart Hall wrought influential interpretations of social class and popular culture out of arguments with the Scrutiny tradition. This is the first book to examine major figures such as these alongside the hundreds of other teachers and writers in the movement whose names are obscure but who wrestled with the same challenges: how do you approach a baffling poem? How do you uncover what an advertisement is trying to do? How can literature inform our everyday experiences and judgements? What does ‘culture’ mean in modern times?
Ruth Morello
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199203956
- eISBN:
- 9780191708244
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199203956.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines in detail Pliny's ‘inclusive’ persona, and particularly the ways in which his correspondence fosters a community of addressees and develops a didactic project in literary ...
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This chapter examines in detail Pliny's ‘inclusive’ persona, and particularly the ways in which his correspondence fosters a community of addressees and develops a didactic project in literary friendship and literary criticism. The letter presents another lesson in how to operate in literary society, taught by a man who seems unsure of himself in literary production, but confident that he does at least know how the social sides of literary activity should function. Pliny's own iudicium is insufficient: he needs to see, hear, and act on the responses of his friends, and the recitation is part of the process of literary production. When friends fail in their duty to encourage and to provide frank substantive criticism, disapproval can degenerate into inuidia, the resentment (potentially resulting in malicious action) of another's success or material benefit, or the generalized ill-feeling incurred by inappropriate behaviour. It is a prominent motif in Cicero's letters, and is observed in Pliny's ‘episto-literary’ project.Less
This chapter examines in detail Pliny's ‘inclusive’ persona, and particularly the ways in which his correspondence fosters a community of addressees and develops a didactic project in literary friendship and literary criticism. The letter presents another lesson in how to operate in literary society, taught by a man who seems unsure of himself in literary production, but confident that he does at least know how the social sides of literary activity should function. Pliny's own iudicium is insufficient: he needs to see, hear, and act on the responses of his friends, and the recitation is part of the process of literary production. When friends fail in their duty to encourage and to provide frank substantive criticism, disapproval can degenerate into inuidia, the resentment (potentially resulting in malicious action) of another's success or material benefit, or the generalized ill-feeling incurred by inappropriate behaviour. It is a prominent motif in Cicero's letters, and is observed in Pliny's ‘episto-literary’ project.
