An essential guide to understanding literary theory and criticism in the European tradition
What is Literature? A Critical Anthology explores the most fundamental question in literary studies. 'What is literature?' is the name of a problem that emerges with the idea of literature in European modernity. This volume offers a cross-section of modern literary theory and reflects on the history of thinking about literature as a specific form. What is Literature? reveals how ideas of the literary draw on the foundations of Western thought in ancient Greece and Rome, charting the emergence of modern literature in the eighteenth century, and including selections from the present state of the art.
The anthology includes the work of leading writers and critics of the last two thousand years including Plato, Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jacques Rancière, and many others. The book is an insightful examination of the nature of literature, its meanings and values, functions and forms, provocations and mysteries.
What is Literature? brings together in one volume influential and intriguing essays that show our enduring fascination with the idea of literature. This important guide:
- Contains a broad selection of the most significant texts on the topic of literature
- Includes leading writers from ancient times to the most recent thinkers on literature and criticism
- Encourages readers to reflect on the varied meanings of "literature"
What is Literature? A Critical Anthology is a unique collection of texts that will appeal to every student and scholar of literature and literary criticism in the European tradition.
AN ESSENTIAL VOLUME ON LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM IN THE EUROPEAN TRADITION
Many of the most influential thinkers and writers in fields as diverse as literary criticism, philosophy, psychoanalysis, sociology and history have posed the question: "What is literature?". Attempts to define literature lead to further questions: What is literature for? Who decides whether a written work is literature? What are the criteria? What sets literary language apart from ordinary language? What is Literature? A Critical Anthology??addresses these and other fundamental questions in literary studies, bringing together essays spanning more than two centuries to explore our conceptions of literature and its meanings, values, and purposes.
Focusing on the Western literary tradition, this volume includes an introduction which discusses literature's foundations in ancient Greek philosophy, explores the emergence of literature as a distinct form in the eighteenth century, and provides insights into modern literary theory. The anthology features essays by figures central to the definition of literature as an idea, including Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot, and a selection of those who have called that idea into question, such as Jacques Derrida, Hélène Cixous, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Jacques Rancière.
Offering a carefully curated examination of the nature of literature, this book:
- Presents diverse perspectives and reflections on the meanings of "literature"
- Offers a wide-ranging selection of significant texts on literary theory
- Includes essays by contemporary voices on literature and criticism
- Features many complete and substantial selections, rather than excerpts.
A unique and thoughtful approach for understanding the idea of literature, What is Literature? A Critical Anthology??is an important resource for students and scholars of literature and literary criticism.
