Description
Book SynopsisFigures of a Changing World develops an account of culture change that is based on the distinction between the two rhetorical figures of metaphor and metonymy. These figures are applied both to the large-scale interpretation of tensions in culture change and to the micro-interpretation of tensions within particular texts.
Trade Review"Figures of a Changing World is the twelfth in a remarkable series of literary and visual studies over the past quarter century that comprise Harry Berger's extraordinarily wide-ranging critical oeuvre. This new book articulates the larger linguistic context and cultural change that undergird Berger's heroic acts of brilliantly detailed close reading of early modern texts and images." -- -Peter Erickson Northwestern University "In Figures of a Changing World, Harry Berger, Jr. distills into brief scope a masterful review and critique of a major topic in twentieth century critical theory: the post-Nietszchean theory of tropes. Berger's work is always welcomed by scholars in his fields (plural), but this little book on a big topic has the potential to be among the most widely read and appreciated of his many volumes because the subject is of interest to so many academic practitioners, because his treatment of it is as trenchant and pointed as it is wide-ranging, and because his style is so appealingly distinctive." -- -David Lee Miller University of South Carolina
