Detailansicht
A Future for Criticism
Blackwell Manifestos
ISBN/EAN: 9781405169561
Umbreit-Nr.: 1225636
Sprache:
Englisch
Umfang: 152 S.
Format in cm:
Einband:
kartoniertes Buch
Erschienen am 28.01.2011
Auflage: 1/2011
- Kurztext
- A Future for Criticism offers an original approach to the pleasures of fiction, and puts forward an explanation for the neglect of these pleasures in contemporary criticism. Theorist and critic Catherine Belsey argues that current literary commentary singles out thematic issues at the expense of the true motives for reading and theatre-going. As a playful form in which anything can be said, fiction offers, she proposes, exceptionally subtle access to thought-worlds, both past and present. At the same time, it is capable of delivering challenges to the limits of orthodox thinking. Fiction, this engaging manifesto contends, enlists desire. Outlining in a clear, readable style a path that makes a decisive break from outmoded values, Belsey offers a personal prescription for a more open future critical practice, less constrained by conventional pieties and expectations. Widely illustrated with examples throughout the text, this lively and accessible account leads the way to a broad and inclusive cultural criticism.
- Autorenportrait
- InhaltsangabePreface. 1 Pleasure: Have we neglected it? Fiction for pleasure. The case of tragedy. The English curriculum. Cries of joy. 'Aesthetic' pleasure. The Pleasure of the Text. Modernist unpleasure. Gaiety. 2 Piety: Haven't we overdone it? Criticism on the defensive. Classic defences. The advent of theory. Law. The superego. Neurosis. Complacency. Culture and Anarchy. Artefacts and pleasure. Critical writing. 3 Biography: Friend or foe? Life and art. Biography in theory. What the authors say. New Historicism. Shakespeare's life. Fact or fiction? Shakespeare's memory. Romance. The death of the reader. 4 Realism: Do we overrate it? A disputed value. The default genre. Imitation. Insight. Totalization. Suspicion. Objections. The radical view. Recuperation. A counterexample. 5 Culture: What do we mean by it? Cultural criticism. Twin perils. Culture as meanings. Meanwhile, in Paris. Anthropology. Another culture. Perils circumvented. Work to do. 6 History: Do we do it justice? Offi cial usage. Cultural difference. History and criticism. Customary knowledge. Dissonance. An example. The old historicism. Criticism as cultural history. The uses of criticism. Critical skills. 7 Desire: A force to reckon with. Pleasure revisited. Orpheus. Loss. The desire of the protagonist. Standins. The desire of the reader. The desire of the text. Substitution. Pacification. Defiance. Breaking the rules. And so. Criticism. Notes. Index.