Literary Theory and Criticism

AN OXFORD GUIDE Edited by

Patricia Waugh

OXPORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS

Detailed contents

List of contributors

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Introduction: criticism, theory, and anti-theory Patricia Waugh From the theory of literature to the theory revolution Fear and loathing in literary studies: the seductions of 'theory' Literary theories and scientific theories A homeopathic art: 'theory' as the resistance to theory The rise of theory Before 'theory': early to mid-twentieth-century criticism The rise of the professional: criticism in the modern academy The future of theory and criticism

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Part I Concepts of criticism and aesthetic origins

1 Mimesis: ancient Greek literary theory Andrea Nightingale Mimesis Fiction and falsehood The audience Catharsis Further reading 2 Expressivity: the Romantic theory of authorship Andrew Bennett Expression Confession Composition Inspiration

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Detailed contents Imagination Further reading 3 Interpretation: hermeneutics Timothy Clark The defence of non-theoretical understanding Art and truth Do texts have 'objective' meanings? Gadamer's defence of reading as freedom Further reading 4 Value: criticism, canons, and evaluation Patricia Waugh The origin of canons The test of time: reputation and value For and against literary value-judgements The containment of literature and the preservation of value Postmodernism and the retreat from value Further reading 55 57 59 60 61 63 65 67 70 70 73 75 77 79 80

Part II Criticism and critical practices in the twentieth century

5 Literature and the academy Chris Baldick Criticism incorporated A brief prehistory Modernism and the purification of criticism Criticism decentred Further reading 6 I. A. Richards Ann Banfield Intellectual contexts: Cambridge philosophy The meaning of meaning Principles of literary criticism Practical criticism Critical legacies Further reading

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Detailed contents | xi 7 T. S. Eliot and the idea of tradition Gareth Reeves 'Tradition and the Individual Talent'then and now F. H. Bradleythe historical sense Impersonalitythe closet Romantic Literary and socio-political hierarchies Legacies: theory Legacies: poetry Further reading 8 Anthropology and/as myth in modern criticism Michael Bell 'Myth'and'reason' Varieties of Modernist mythopoeia Literary anthropology Structuralism and the breakup of Modernist mythopoeia Myth and the marvellous Further reading 9 F. R. Leavis: criticism and culture Gary Day Leavis's cultural criticism Leavis and scientific management Leavis's literary criticism Further reading 10 Marxist aesthetics Tony Davies Marx before Marxism Art, authorship, ideology Base and superstructure Marxism, realism, typicality Art, antiquity, and modernity Marxism since Marx Further reading 11 William Empson: from verbal analysis to cultural criticism David Fuller Verbal analysis Cultural criticism 107 107 108 110 112 113 115 117 119 119 121 123 126 127 129 130 131 134 135 138 140 140 141 143 144 146 149 150 152 152 155

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Detailed contents Contra clerisies: moral criticism The example of Empson Further reading 12 The New Criticism Stephen Matterson Origins Methods and characteristics Influence and legacy Further reading 13 The intentional fallacy Peter Lamarque The anti-intentionalist case The intentionalist response Further reading 14 Adorno and the Frankfurt School Andrew Bowie Historical origins of Critical Theory Walter Benjamin T. W. Adorno Further reading 15 Freud and psychoanalysis Celine Surprenant The application of psychoanalysis to literary works From contents to texts 'The Subtleties of a Faulty Action' Correspondences between literary and unconscious processes Language Freud's theories Further reading 16 The Russian debate on narrative Gary Saul Morson The Russian debate on culture The formalist 'science' of literature Formalism and literary history Bakhtin and'the surplus' Bakhtin 's theories of the novel 158 161 163 166 168 170 172 175 177 178 183 187 189 190 191 194 198 199 201 202 203 204 206 208 209 212 213 214 217 218 219

Detailed contents 17 Bakhtin and the dialogic principle Lynne Pearce Polyphony Dialogism Heteroglossia Carnival 18 Form, rhetoric, and intellectual history Faiza W. Shereen Historical background A theoretical grounding Key concepts in Chicago criticism Trends in Chicago criticism Further reading 19 Literature into culture: Cultural Studies after Leavis Glenn Jordan and Chris Weedon The development of Cultural Studies Interdisciplinarity/anti-disciplinarity The internationalization of Cultural Studies Further reading 245 245 249 251 254 223 224 226 229 230 233 234 234 236 238 243

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Part III Literary theory: movements and schools

20 Structuralism and narrative poetics Susana Onega Saussure and structuralism Ferdinand de Saussure After Saussure Barthes and structuralist poetics Roland Barthes Genette and narratology Gerard Genette Conclusion Further reading 21 Psychoanalysis after Freud Josiane Paccaud-Huguet Jacques Lacan: desire and discourse Jacques Lacan: jouissance and the letter

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Detailed contents Slavoj Zizek: or life after psychoanalysis Further reading 22 Deconstruction Alex Thomson What is deconstruction? Deconstruction and post-structuralism The deconstruction of metaphysics Deconstruction and writing Deconstruction, history, and politics Deconstruction, literature, and philosophy Romanticism and deconstruction Literature and truth Deconstruction and interpretation Deconstruction and literature Deconstruction and literary criticism Further reading 23 Feminisms Fiona Tolan Simone de Beauvoir and the second wave The essentialism debate Literary feminisms New French feminisms: Kristeva, Cixous, Irigaray Overview: from The Second Sex to Gender Trouble Further reading 24 Postcolonialism Elleke Boehmer The 'post' in postcolonial Related political traditions Movements and theories against empire Frantz Fanon Postcolonial nationalism and nations Leading twentieth-century postcolonial thinkers Theory in practice: postcolonial readings Further reading 294 297 298 299 301 303 304 305 307 309 310 312 313 314 317 319 319 322 325 332 337 338 340 340 342 343 345 347 350 357 360

Detailed contents | xv 25 Race, Nation, and ethnicity Kathleen Ken The theory of modernity The Enlightenment context Race and nation: nineteenth-century imperialism Turn-of-the-century black consciousness in America Du Bois and Booker T. Washington Later twentieth-century cultural trends Hybridity: Modernist Hybridity: Postmodern Multiculturalism and politics Further reading 26 Reconstructing historicism Paul Hamilton A crisis for historicism The 'end of history' thesis Reception theory and historicism The aesthetic/historic nexus Kojeve's snobbery Allegories and collections Historicism and Bergsonism Further reading 27 Postmodernism Chris Snipp-Walmsley The evolution of postmodernism Modernity, Modernism, postmodernity, and postmodernism Postmodernism, post-structuralism, and neo-pragmatism 1968 and all thatthe seeds of postmodernism The 'postmodern' Osboumes Raising the roofpostmodern rhetoric and theory The end of reason, or where reason endsresistance to postmodernism Postmodernism and the authority of time Rushdie's ethical postmodernismHaroun as a cautionary fable Monty Python's life of postmodernism Further reading 362 365 366 371 373 374 375 377 379 381 384 386 386 388 390 394 395 399 401 403 405 405 409 411 413 415 416 418 420 421 424 425

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Detailed contents 28 Sexualities Tony Purvis Problems of sexual identity The sexualization of everyday life Sexual 'natures' and sexual 'identities' 'Queer' theories?: epistemology, rhetoric, performativity Sexuality and beyond Further reading 29 Science and criticism: beyond the culture wars Christopher Norris Early stages: the 'science and poetry' debate Some versions of structuralism From the 'two cultures' to the Sokal affair Science, literature, and 'possible worlds' Fiction, philosophy, and the quantum multiverse Beyond the 'two cultures' Further reading 427 427 430 436 438 443 448 451 451 453 456 460 463 467 469

Part IV Futures and retrospects

30 Performing literary interpretation K. M. Newton Introduction 'Construing' as an interpretive method Literary interpretation as performance The ethics of performing interpretation Further reading 31 The responsibilities of the writer Sean Burke Responsibility and unintended outcomes The risk of writing The origins of authorial agency Creativity versus containment: the aesthetic defence Further reading 32 Mixing memory and desire: psychoanalysis, psychology, and trauma theory Roger Luckhurst Defining trauma

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Detailed contents | xvii Yale School trauma theory Why trauma? Further reading 33 Theories of the gaze Jeremy Hawthorn Origins Laura Mulvey: 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' Michel Foucault and Jeremy Bentham's 'Panopticon' The gaze in interpersonal psychology Extensions Readings Further reading 34 Anti-canon theory David Punter Foreign body The post-colonial The body The ghostly The Uncanny Further reading 35 Environmentalism and ecocriticism Richard Kerridge Environmentalism Ecology Anthropocentrism and ecocentrism Ecofeminism Nature Pastoral Romanticism Further reading 36 Cognitive literary criticism Alan Richardson Introduction Cognitive rhetoric Cognitive poetics Cognitive narratology Cognitive aesthetics of reception 501 503 506 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 517 519 519 521 523 525 527 528 530 532 535 537 537 538 540 540 541 544 544 545 547 549 550

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Detailed contents Cognitive materialism Evolutionary literary theory Further reading 37 Writing excess: the poetic principle of post-literary culture Scott Wilson Equivalence Axiomatic Econopoiesis Index 551 553 554 557 557 560 563 569