Foundations of Literary Theory: The Nineteenth Century

ISBN-13: 9780415118750 / Angielski / Twarda / 1995 / 2104 str.

E. S. Dallas; John Price

Opis

The great outburst of literary theory in the 18th century was instrumental in establishing literary theory in the 19th century as an area of intellectual activity. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, more than anyone, tranformed both the status and the nature of literary theory. Arguing that questions about poetry and literature could lead to a structured system of assessment and judgements that had a validity that was different only in degree from that found in the physical sciences, Coleridge gave new authority to the imaginative sciences. One of the questions that concerned literary theorists in the 19th century was the question of truth in literature. What kind of truth did literature, poetry in particular, offer to readers? Questions about the difference between mimesis and representation proved to be more difficult in solving than 18th century theorists had thought.