This book addresses the central crisis in critical theory today: the attempts to theorize the subject as both a construct of discourse and a dialogical agent. In Theorising Textual Subjects, Meili Steele argues that it is possible to understand the postmodern subject as an active political agent. Steele argues that some of the most influential theories of agency fail to account for the ethical implications of the supposed contingency of all contexts. Through wide reference to leading political, philosophical and critical thinkers, this book maps new ways of confronting the problem of how...

Literary personification has long been taken for granted as an important aspect of Western narrative; Paul de Man had given it prominence as "the master trope of poetic discourse." James Paxson here offers a critical and theoretical appraisal of personification in the light of developments in poststructuralist thought. He reassesses early theories and examines the allegorical texts of Prudentius, Chaucer, Langland and Spenser to show how personification works as a complex artistic tool for revealing and advertising the problems and limits inherent in poetic or verbal creation.

The relationship of words to the things they represent and to the mind that forms them has long been the subject of linguistic enquiry. Joseph Graham's challenging book takes this debate into the field of literary theory, making a searching enquiry into the nature of literary representation. It reviews the arguments of Plato's Cratylus on how words signify things, and of Chomsky's theory of the innate "natural" status of language (contrasted with Saussure's notion of its essential arbitrariness). In the process, Graham explores the issues of meaning and intentionality in representation, and...

This book explores the political significance of aesthetic analysis in the context of cultural and film studies, and asks how political responsibility can be reconciled with the concept of the university as a democratic institution. Through detailed reference to Neil Jordan's film The Crying Game, Patrick McGee shows how film can be both a product of the culture industry and a critique of it. He analyzes the function of the university in producing interpretations of such highly political art forms and in determing the limits of critical discussion. McGee links Adorno with Derrida to provide a...

This book addresses the central crisis in critical theory today: the attempts to theorize the subject as both a construct of discourse and a dialogical agent. In Theorising Textual Subjects, Meili Steele argues that it is possible to understand the postmodern subject as an active political agent. Steele argues that some of the most influential theories of agency fail to account for the ethical implications of the supposed contingency of all contexts. Through wide reference to leading political, philosophical and critical thinkers, this book maps new ways of confronting the problem of how...

The dominance in literary theory of perspectives derived from French poststructuralism is shown by the priority accorded to language. In this collection of essays, the German philosopher Manfred Frank challenges many of the fundamental assumptions of contemporary theory. The emphasis on language, he claims, ignores key arguments inherited from Romantic hermeneutics, those which demonstrate that interpretation is an individual activity never finally governed by rules. Andrew Bowie's introduction situates Frank's work in the context of contemporary debates in philosophy and literary theory.

Theory has become a common language in the humanities in recent years, but its practical application as a pedagogical aid has yet to be fully addressed. In The Practice of Theory, Michael Bernard-Donals examines the connection between theory and pedagogy at the level of practice. He argues that though rhetoric links pedagogy with theory, this tradition must also connect with other human and natural sciences. A materialistic rhetoric can, he claims, reinvigorate the link between theory, teaching and practice. This book offers a sustained reflection on the production of knowledge across a range...

Narrative features such as frames, digressions, or authorial intrusions have traditionally been seen as distractions from the narrative proper. In Theory and the English Novel, Jeffrey Williams analyzes these elements as points where the novel overtly depicts or inscribes the act of narration itself. He looks at a range of novels--Tristram Shandy, Joseph Andrews, Wuthering Heights, Lord Jim, and Heart of Darkness--and poses a series of theoretical questions that offer an original contribution to readings of the English novel, as well as to current discussions of theory.

In Chronoschisms Ursula Heise explores the way developments in communication and information technology have led to the emergence of a new culture of time in Western societies. Drawing on theories of postmodernism and narratology, she shows how postmodern narratives break up the concept of plot into a spectrum of contradictory story lines that allow new conceptions of history and posthistory to emerge. This wide-ranging study offers new readings of postmodernist theory and fresh insight into the often vexing relationship between literature and science.

This is a collection in translation of recent essays by Tzvetan Todorov, one of the most eminent of today's literary critics. The essays concentrate on the idea of genre, literary or otherwise, and asks such questions as: What is literature? What is genre? Which are the major literary genres? In the first section, Todorov proposes definitions for the notions of literature, discourse, and genre. Following is a general discussion of the two principal literary genres, fiction and poetry. Finally, in the third section of essays, Todorov examines individual authors as case studies: among them Poe,...