Description
Book SynopsisThe first critical survey of its kind devoted solely to literary evaluation Companion to Literary Evaluation bridges the gap between the non-academic literary world, where evaluation is deeply ingrained, and the world of academia, where evaluation is rarely considered. Encouraging readers to formulate and articulate arguments that balance instinctive judgment and reasoned assessment, this unique volume addresses key issues regarding literary values from the perspective of analytical aesthetics and the philosophy of literature. Bringing together a diverse panel of contributors, the Companion explores competing theories of literary evaluation, the reasons for evaluating theater and lyric poetry in performance, the question of value in literary theory, debates over Modernism's negative impact on literature, the possibility of evaluating aesthetic beauty through scientific and formalist methods, the nature and status of literary evaluation as a branch of criticism, aesthetics in applied a
Table of Contents
Notes on contributors
Introduction, by Richard Bradford
Chapter 1: Literary Values, Peter Lamarque
Chapter 2: Complexity as a Criterion for the Evaluation of Literature, Anja Müller
Wood
Chapter 3: Schooled Aesthetic Asymmetries: (Back)firing the Canon in Secondary
Education, D.J. Howells
Chapter 4: Defining Literature: The Route to Aesthetic Evaluation, Paolo Euron
Chapter 5: Kathleen Raine: the Less Received, Andrew Keanie
Chapter 6: “Is (This) Translation Any Good?”: The Evaluation of Literary Translation,
Giuseppe Sofo
Chapter 7: The Algorithm of Beauty: Aesthetic Judgement as a Science, Madelena
Gonzalez
Chapter 8: Literary value and the question of insight on humanly relevant matters,
Emanuela Tegla
Chapter 9: How books get reviewed: Evaluation and the freelance journalist, D J
Taylor
Chapter 10: A Lifetime of Evaluation, Penny Stenning
Chapter 11: Evaluating Unfinished Novels: Octavia E. Butler and the Improbability
of Justice, Rafe McGregor
Chapter 12: “How to Bring So Goode a Matter into a Better Forme’’: the Value of the
Horse in Early Modern Writing, Elisabetta Deriu
Chapter 13: Reading performance for the values underpinning production, Amanda
Finch
Chapter 14: Bridging the gap between Page and Performance Poetry, Karen
Simecek
Chapter 15: Aesthetics and Efficacy in Applied and Community Theatre, Dónall Mac
Cathmhaoill
Chapter 16: Antonin Artaud Beyond Judgement: A radio reading of ‘To Have Done
With The Judgement Of God’ with local prisoners, Gary Anderson and Niamh
Malone
Chapter 17: “Chief of the Second-Rate”: James Shirley and Dramatic Value, Heidi
Craig
Chapter 18: “The Glories of our Blood and State” and The Lady of Pleasure: The
Genius of [Counterfactual] Britain’s National Writer - James Shirley, Kevin De Ornellas
Chapter 19: Evaluating Literary Evaluation, Peter Barry
Chapter 20: The Horrible Legacy of Modernism, Richard Bradford
Chapter 21: Evaluating Poems, Amy Burns and Richard Bradford
Index
