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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... religious may no longer be so , except by an in- tensity that makes us wonder how alert we are when we neglect its - presence in the ancient texts . We are blessed with two kinds of funda- mentalism today : a religious fundamentalism ...
... religious faith , to clear commitments and often to fundamentalist kinds of faith . Now it is hard to get one's historical bearings on the frequency of these cycles . T. S. Eliot announced in 1929 his return to religion and conservative ...
... religious model ( " There is no intellectual , cultural , political , or religious tradition of interpretation that does not ulti- mately live by the quality of its conversation " ) , see David Tracy , Plurality and Ambiguity ...
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 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
Verweise auf dieses Buch
Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation, 1946-1980 Caroline S. Hau Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2000 |