Overview

What is distinctive about the cultural practice called 'literature'? How does it benefit individuals and society? How do literary works retain their importance and their capacity to give pleasure over decades and centuries? What constitutes responsible criticism? These are some of the questions addressed in this book, which develops the arguments put forward in Derek Attridge's influential study The Singularity of Literature (2004). Beginning with an extended cross-examination in the form of an interview addressing a range of topics relating to the work of literature (understood both as the activity of the writer and as the text itself) and the practices of literary reading and literary criticism, it asks what it means to 'do justice to' a work of literature, provides a full account of the concept of singularity, considers the problematic power of criticism, and advances an account of the role of context in the writing and reading of literary works. In other chapters it explores the issue of cultural difference in responses to literature, discusses the working of metaphor, questions the attribution of knowledge to literary works, and addresses the topics of affect and hospitality. The book follows through the consequences of regarding the singular and inventive work of literature as an event that takes place anew each time it is read, providing an opening to an otherness excluded by prevailing cultural norms and habits of thought and feeling. Although the focus of the book is on literature, the arguments are relevant to all the arts, and engage with the thought of major aesthetic theorists in a number of traditions.

Full Product Details

Author:   Derek Attridge (Professor of English, Professor of English, University of York)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 13.90cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 21.50cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9780198798903

ISBN 10:   0198798903
Pages:   336
Publication Date:   24 August 2017
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

Introduction Part I 1: The Singularity of Literature: A Cross-examination What is 'literature'? The literary event Literary invention Terminological questions Media, periods, and genres Otherness and ethics The aesthetic tradition Sources and parallels Politics and ideology And to conclude... Part II 2: Justice Doing justice An example: Dickinson's 'As imperceptibly as Grief' Signature and counter-signature 3: Singularity Unpacking singularity Singularity and ethics A singular invention: Donoghue's Room 4: Criticism Critical power: the critic Critical power: the poet Muldoon's The Loaf and the limits of commentary 5: Context The context of creation The context of reading Present reading and historical context 6: Culture Inventiveness and cultural distance Reading The Yacoubian Building Responsible reading across cultures 7: Metaphor Performing literature Metaphor and metaphoricity Metaphor and the reader 8: Knowing What do literary works know? Ways of knowing and thinking Literature's secrets 9: Affect Literary affect: McCarthy's Blood Meridian Affect and form Pleasure in reading 10: Hospitality The double law of hospitality Hospitality as ethics Invention, grace, and life Hospitality and literary criticism References Index

Reviews

a valuable companion ... In its beautifully executed entirety, The Work of Literature is a limber embodiment of [Attridge's] candid, generous, often passionate argument. David James, Public Books Derek Attridge is one of the most formidable theorists working today in the field of literary studies. Paul Giles, Australian Book Review

Derek Attridge is one of the most formidable theorists working today in the field of literary studies. * Paul Giles, Australian Book Review * a valuable companion ... In its beautifully executed entirety, The Work of Literature is a limber embodiment of [Attridge's] candid, generous, often passionate argument. * David James, Public Books * Attridge at his best, raising difficult and perennial dilemmas and addressing them without evasion or recourse to jargon. The institution of literature requires perceptive, responsible, and sincere critics and theorists like Attridge himself. * Rafe McGregor, Critical Quarterly *

Author Information

Author or editor of twenty-three books. On eighteen journal editorial boards. Work translated into Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, etc. Publications range across many areas, including poetic form, literary theory, and Irish and South African writing. After obtaining degrees in his native South Africa and at Cambridge, he was Research Fellow at Oxford. He has taught in the UK, France, Italy and the USA, and is currently Professor in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York. Recent visiting fellowships include All Souls College, the Stellenbosch Institute for Advance Study, the Bogliasco Foundation, and the National Center for the Humanities. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.

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