Description
Book SynopsisThe Iliad and Beowulf provide rich sources of historical information. The novels of Henry Fielding and Henry James may be instructive in the art of moral living. Some go further and argue that Emile Zola and Harriet Beecher Stowe played a part in ameliorating the lives of those existing in harsh circumstances. However, as Derek Attridge argues in this outstanding and acclaimed book, none of these capacities is distinctive of literature. What is the singularity of literature? Do the terms literature and the literary refer to actual entities found in cultures at certain times, or are they merely expressions characteristic of such cultures? Attridge argues that this resistance to definition and reduction is not a dead end, but a crucial starting point from which to explore anew the power and practices of Western art.
Derek Attridge provides a rich new vocabulary for literature, rethinking such terms as invention, singularity, otherness, alterity, performance an
Trade Review
"A deeply important book"—Rob Pope, Language and Literature
"A significant and enduring contribution towards readable, ethically engaged literary criticism" – Justin Neuman, Journal of Postcolonial Writing
"This book constitutes a timely, rigorous and thought-provoking alternative to the exigencies of politicised criticism" – Lucy O’Meara, Textual Practice
Table of ContentsPreface
Preface to the Routledge Classics Edition
1. Introductory
2. Creation and the other
3. Originality and invention
4. Inventive language and the literary event
5. Singularity
6. Reading and responding
7. Performance
8. Form, meaning, context
9. Responsibility and ethics
10. An everyday impossibility
Debts and Directions
Notes
Bibliography
Index
