Introduction to Ethical Literary Criticism

ISBN-13: 9781032140025 / Angielski

Nie Zhenzhao

Opis

This title is a thorough introduction to ethical literary criticism, defined as a critical methodology to interpret literature from the perspective of ethics, with the whole set of concepts and theories elucidated and textual analyses provided.

While building on ideas from both western ethical criticism and the Chinese tradition of moral criticism, ethical literary criticism acts as a counterpoint to the former's lack of theoretical foundations and applicable methodologies and the latter's tendency to make subjective moral judgments. Developed into a coherent theoretical framework, it asserts the ethical nature and edifying function of literature and thereby seeks to highlight in the literary text the ethical relationship and moral order among human beings and within society in the historical context. Though provocative to a degree, the arguments and methodological toolbox used inject a unique ethical dimension into literary criticism and will help readers understand anew the ethical and social potency of literature.

The book's theoretical elucidation, examples from practical criticism and introduction to key terminologies make this book an essential guide for students and general readers interested in ethical literary criticism and a valuable read for scholars of literary criticism, ethical criticism and literary theory.

Recenzje

‘The noblest mission of IAELC, as formulated in Nie Zhenzhao's teachings, is to restore the critical discipline to its proper suppleness and subtlety, its engagement with central human purposes, undoctrinaire, faithful to its documents, respectful of historical knowledge, and in short empirical in the best and most sensitive readerly way.'

Claude Rawson, Yale University, USA

'It seems to me that Ethical Literary Criticism is valuable in that it seeks not just to revise moral criticism, but to modernize and "update" it for our own time. I thus think that Ethical Literary Criticism may have potentially useful things to say not just about the literature of Samuel Johnson's or Arnold's or Leavis's age, but also about earlier (and later) works.'

Galin Tihanov, Queen Mary University of London, UK

'Nie Zhenzhao's Introduction to Ethical Literary Criticism illuminates the working logistics and principles of ethical literary criticism, generating a variety of ethical events and ethical conflicts in literary works, providing a new approach to literary studies after the "ethical turn" in western deconstructive and postmodern literary theory and criticism, creating new contemporary Chinese trends in literary criticism and theory, and anticipating the future anterior of the Asian literary critical discourse.'

Youngmin Kim, Dongguk University, South Korea

Spis treści

1. Introduction  Part 1: Ethical Literary Criticism: Basic Theory  2. What is Ethical Literary Criticism  3. The Sphinx Factor and Ethical Selection  4. The Origin of Literature: Issues and Misreading  5. Ethical Literary Criticism: A Moral Tradition  6. Ethical Literary Criticism and Moral Criticism  7. Re-Reading Classical Literature  8. Western Ethical Criticism  9. Ethical Literary Criticism in China  Part 2: Ethical Literary Criticism: Case Studies  10. Ethical Taboo and the Tragedy of Oedipus  11. Ethical Concerns in Thomas Hardy's Works  12. The Law of the Jungle in The Old Man and the Sea  13. Incest and Revenge in Mourning Becomes Electra  14. The Transformation of Ethics in China's May Fourth Poetry

O autorze

Nie Zhenzhao, MAE, is currently Professor and Yunshan Chair on World Literature and Languages at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China. Previously he was a Distinguished Professor of Literature and founding director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of World Literature at Zhejiang University, where he transferred to emeritus status in 2022. He is an elected foreign member of the Academia Europaea.