Overview

What should literature with political aims look like? This book traces two rival responses to this question, one prizing clarity and the other confusion, which have dominated political aesthetics since the late nineteenth century. Revisiting recurrences of the avant-garde experimentalism versus critical realism debates from the twentieth century, Geoffrey A. Baker highlights the often violent reductions at work in earlier debates. Instead of prizing one approach over the other, as many participants in those debates have done, Baker focuses on the manner in which the debate itself between these approaches continues to prove productive and enabling for politically engaged writers. This book thus offers a way beyond the simplistic polarity of realism vs. anti-realism in a study that is focused on influential strands of thought in England, France, and Germany and that covers well-known authors such as Zola, Nietzsche, Arnold, Mann, Brecht, Sartre, Adorno, Lukács, Beauvoir, Morrison, and Coetzee.

Full Product Details

Author:   Geoffrey A. Baker
Publisher:   Springer International Publishing AG
Imprint:   Springer International Publishing AG
Edition:   Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2016
Dimensions:   Width: 14.80cm , Height: 1.60cm , Length: 21.00cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9783319825175

ISBN 10:   3319825178
Pages:   279
Publication Date:   07 July 2018
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Table of Contents   Preface and Acknowledgements                                                                                                           Introduction: Literary Activism, Clarity and Confusion                                                              I. Sartre and the Aesthetic of Clarity                                                 II. Adorno and the Aesthetic of Confusion III. The Use(lessness) of Literature and Language                                                      Part I: Naturalists and Nietzscheans: Codifying Clarity and Confusion   Chapter 1: “For Love of Clarity”: Émile Zola, Practice, and the Political Potential of Realistic Literature                                                                                    I. “Tout voir, tout savoir”: Seeing as Knowing                                                          II. Content to Know                                                                                                   III. The Practical Uses of Clarity                                                                                  Chapter 2: Grounds for Confusion: Nietzsche, Theory, and the Political Potential of Anti-Realism                                                                                                                  I. “Das Problem der Wissenschaft”: Against Knowing                                              II. “Clarity Bordering on Stupidity”: The Form of Confusion                                   III. The Practical Uses of Confusion                                                                            Part II: Ambiguities of Activism: Complicating Clarity and Confusion   Chapter 3: Between Theory and Practice: Matthew Arnold, Thomas Mann, Julien Benda, and the Purpose of the Intellectual                                                                                                        I. “Apostle[s] of Political Detachment”?                                                                                II. Criticism between Clarity and Confusion                                                                         III. Criticism as Activism                                                                                                       IV. Between Theory and Practice, Still   Chapter 4: “Different Kinds of Clarity”: Science, Sense, and Utilitarian Realism in Bertolt Brecht I. Naturalist Brecht? II. The Sense of Brecht III. “The Truth is Concrete”: Brecht’s Materialism IV. “That Brechtian Usefulness”   Chapter 5: Pressing Engagement: Jean-Paul Sartre and the Aesthetic Problem of the Political I. Communication, Clarity, and Confusion                                                                II. Forms of Engagement: Confusing Sartre                                                              III. To Change the Subject: Narcissistic Activism                                                       Chapter 6: An Other Engagement: Simone de Beauvoir and the Ethical Problem of the Political                                                                                                                      I. The Problem of Engagement                                                                                   II. The Aesthetics and Ethics of Engagement in The Mandarins                                 Conclusion: Contemporary Engagements with Clarity and Confusion       I. Peter Handke: From the Ivory Tower       II. Toni Morrison: “How to See without Pictures”       III. J.M Coetzee: “Surprising Involvement”   Works Cited                             

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Author Information

Geoffrey A. Baker is Associate Professor of Humanities (Literature) at Yale-NUS College, Singapore. He is the author of Realism’s Empire, in addition to articles on political aesthetics, realism, and other topics.

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