Is it possible to return the literary text in all its particularity to the centre of literary study, without going back to the ‘words-on-the page’ myopia of the past? That is the primary question which Literature in contexts engages with. In the 1980s the study of literary theory eclipsed the study of the literary text, but today, we are told, we are ‘post-theory’. Yet as it emerged from the shadow of theory, the literary text was eclipsed all over again by the study of context. Historicist contextualisation became the dominant orientation in literary studies, and this (not quite) New Historicism spread in turn through period after period, from the Early Modern, through Romanticism, and on to the Victorian era. ‘Is English History?’ people began to ask, as it became impossible to attend an academic conference without being subjected to a diet of history lessons.This book seeks to problematise the very notion of context, which has remained for the most part stubbornly un-theorised and un-examined, and it seeks out – in a series of contextualising experiments – contexts which are text-specific, author-specific or literary, rather than historical, putting forward a distinction between ‘deep’ and ‘broad’ contexts and arguing that we need to counter the prevalence of the latter if literary studies is to avoid becoming a minor branch of history.
Les mer
This book seeks to problematise the very notion of context, and it seeks out – in a series of contextualising experiments – contexts which are text-specific, or author-specific, or literary rather than historical, putting forward a distinction between ‘deep’ and ‘broad’ contexts.
Les mer
Introduction1. Contextuality in context2. Contextuality contested3. Mutual contextuality: Coleridge’s conversation poems4. Contextualising Hemans’s shipwrecks5. Seeing the spot:Hopkins, Liverpool, and context6. Picturing the context: contemporary poetry and ekphrasis7. Beyond ‘secret narrative’: crime fiction verse narratives by women8. Just the facts: content is contextList of works consultedIndex
Les mer
A bracing argument, well sustainedLaurence Coupe, Times Higher Educational Supplement, 18th October 2012

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780719064555
Publisert
2012-06-30
Utgiver
Vendor
Manchester University Press
Høyde
234 mm
Bredde
156 mm
Dybde
12 mm
Aldersnivå
UU, UP, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
224

Forfatter

Biographical note

Peter Barry is Professor of English at Aberystwyth University