Minor Prophecies: The Literary Essay in the Culture WarsHarvard University Press, 1991 - 252 Seiten For most people literary criticism is a mystery that often seems inaccessible, written for an in-group. Even worse, a Battle of the Books has broken out between neoconservatives and neoradicals--all the more reason to steer clear of the fray. Geoffrey Hartman argues that ignoring the culture wars would be unwise, for what is at stake is the nature of the arts we prize and our obligation to remain civil and avoid the apocalyptic tone of most political prophecy. Hartman's book is both a survey of the history of modern literary criticism and a strategic intervention. First he presents an account of the culture of criticism in the last one hundred years. He then widens the focus to provide a picture of the critical essay from 1700 to the present in order to show that a major change in style took place after 1950. Two chapters focus on F. R. Leavis and Paul de Man, central--and controversial--figures in academic criticism. Hartman attends to major developments on the continent and in Anglo-American circles that have disrupted the calm of what he calls the friendship or conversational style. On the one hand, critics and thinkers have pursued strange gods in order to enrich and sharpen their critical style. This change Hartman welcomes. On the other hand, along with a renewed interest in politics and historical speculation, a didactic and moralistic tone has again entered the scene. Hartman rejects this new moralism. The author is an eloquent defender of reading the text of criticism as carefully as the text of literature. He argues for a broader conception of critical style, one that would support the open and conversational voice of the public critic as well as the inventive and innovative practice of the technical critic. Hartman sets before us an ideal of literary criticism that can acknowledge theory yet does not shrink from a sustained, text-centered response. Minor Prophecies is a major book by one of our finest critics. |
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... not need a crash - course in the evolution of literary theory could skip that chapter , while noting that its theme , the culture of crit- icism , rehearses the tension I have described . This book , then , is about critical prose .
... described , which assigns philosophy a different role in each culture . The change of terms— from philosophy to theory - reflects mainly the move away from “ iden- tity philosophy " toward its obverse : " critical theory , " or a ...
... described as purely theoretical . We can gain a glimpse of it insofar as it is ideolog- ical ( see Paul de Man's study of Husserl and Lévi - Strauss ) .78 Yet it does seem to be a constructive necessity ( a point zero ) rather than an ...
Inhalt
Pastoral Vestiges | 1 |
The Culture of Criticism | 17 |
Tea and Totality | 57 |
Urheberrecht | |
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Minor Prophecies: The Literary Essay in the Culture Wars Geoffrey H. Hartman Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 1991 |
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Verweise auf dieses Buch
Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation, 1946-1980 Caroline S. Hau Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2000 |