Description
Book SynopsisAs the first study to examine the concept of uncertainty of meaning as it relates to modern and contemporary literature and literary theory,
Literary Theories of Uncertainty demonstrates how this notion functions as a literary feature, narrative device and theoretical concept in 20th and 21st-century texts. Calling upon theories of interpretation and challenging the distinction between literature and theory, this exploration is broken down into three sections: Poststructuralist legacies of uncertainty; life-writing and uncertainty; and contemporary literary uncertainties.The volume takes into account related terms such as undecidability, indeterminacy, ambiguity, unreadability, and obscurity, and the topics examined include: undecidability and the motif of suspension in deconstruction; Derrida and Bataille; poetry as a mode of critical discourse and point of convergence between logico-mathematical ideas of undecidability and literary forms of uncertainty; uncertainty in relation
Trade Review[Mette Leonard] excellently and proficiently discusses the meaning of considering literature through a lens of uncertainty and describes the value of studying the potentially opaque topic ... The contributors include diverse perspectives that provide the reader with a comprehensive, global look at theories of uncertainty. The book delivers on its promise to argue for uncertainty’s place at the center of ascertaining and creating literary meaning through a volume that is thoughtfully rigorous and cleverly structured to facilitate the reader’s understanding. * Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Contributors Introduction: Towards a Conception of ‘Literary Theory of Uncertainty’
Mette Leonard Høeg, University of Oxford, UK Poststructuralist Legacies of Uncertainty 1. Suspended Sentence
Patrick ffrench, King's College, London, UK 2. Poetry, Formalism and Undecidability: Some Verse Explorations
Christopher Norris, Cardiff University, UK Life-Writing and Uncertainty 3. Receiving Antelme’s Word
Christopher Fynsk, Aberdeen, UK 4. Temporal Undecidability: in Retrospect and Prospect
Max Saunders, University of Birmingham, UK 5. Ghosts of Dead Authors
Mieke Bal, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands Contemporary Literary Uncertainties 6. No-Fault Murder
Bruce Robbins, Columbia University, USA 8. 7. Collage Forms and Undecidability in the Work of Emine Sevgi Özdamar
Hannah Vinter, King College London, UK 8. Interrogating Twilight
Nicholas Royle, University of Sussex, UK Index
