{"product_id":"literature-theory-and-common-sense-9780691070421","title":"Literature Theory and Common Sense","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAssessing the accomplishments and failings of literary theory, this work defends the methods and goals of a theoretical commitment tempered by the wisdom of common sense. It is organized not by school of thought but around seven central questions: literariness, the author, the world, the reader, style, history, and value.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Like everything that Antoine Compagnon writes, [this book] is intelligent, oblique, ironic, surprising the reader with unexpected shifts and reversals. It may annoy both theorists and the advocates of common sense, but if they surrender to their annoyance, they will have missed the point.\"--Terence Cave, Times Literary Supplement\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eINTRODUCTION: What Remains of Our Loves? 1  Theory and Common Sense 4  Theory and Practice of Literature 7  Theory, Criticism, History 9  Theory or Theories 10  Theory of Literature or Literary Theory 11  Literature Reduced to Its Elements 12  CHAPTER 1: Literature 15  The Scope of Literature 17  The Comprehension of Literature: Function 19  The Comprehension of Literature: The Form of Content 21  The Comprehension of Literature: The Form of Expression 22  Literariness or Prejudice 25  Literature Is Literature 27  CHAPTER 2: The Author 29  The Thesis of the Death of the Author 30  \"Voluntas\" and \"Actio\" 33  Allegory and Philology 36  Philology and Hermeneutics 39  Intention and Consciousness 43  The Method of Parallel Passages 45  \"Straight from the Horse's Mouth \"48  Intention or Coherence 51  The Two Arguments against Intention 54  The Return to Intention 58  Meaning Is Not Signification 59  Intention Is Not Premeditation 63  The Presumption of Intentionality 65  CHAPTER 3: The World 69  Against \"Mimesis\" 70  \"Mimesis\" Denaturalized 73  Realism: Reflection or Convention 76  The Referential Fallacy and Intertextuality 78  The Terms of the Dispute 82  Critique of the Anti-mimetic Thesis 83  The Arbitrariness of Language 88  \"Mimesis\" as Recognition 92  Fictional Worlds 97  The World of Books 100  CHAPTER 4: The Reader 102  Reading Sidelined 102  The Resistance of the Reader 105  Reception and Influence 108  The Implied Reader 108  The Open Work 113  The Horizon of (Phantom) Expectation 115  Genre as a Model of Reading 116  Freewheeling Reading 117  After the Reader 121  CHAPTER 5: Style 123  Style in All Its Conditions 124  Language, Style, Writing 129  Down with Style! 131  Norm, Deviation, Context 135  Style as Thought 138  The Return of Style 140  Style and Exemplification 142  Norm or Aggregate 144  CHAPTER 6: History 146  Literary History and History of Literature 148  Literary History and Literary Criticism 151  History of Ideas, Social History 153  Literary Evolution 156  The Horizon of Expectation 157  Philology Disguised 161  History or Literature? 164  History as Literature 167  CHAPTER 7: Value 169  Most Poems Are Bad, but They Are Poems 170  Aesthetic Illusion 173  What Is a Classic? 176  On the National Tradition in Literature 180  Saving the Classic 182  The Last Plea for Objectivism 186  Value and Posterity 188  In Favor of a Tempered Relativism 191  CONCLUSION: The Theoretical Adventure 193  Theory and Fiction 194  Theory and \"Bathmology\" 195  Theory and Perplexity 196  NOTES 199  BIBLIOGRAPHY 211  INDEX 217","brand":"Princeton University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51534956659031,"sku":"9780691070421","price":59.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780691070421.jpg?v=1755858265","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/literature-theory-and-common-sense-9780691070421","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}