A Companion to the Philosophy of Literature PDF Download

Author: Garry L. Hagberg
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118963873
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 568

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Book Description
This monumental collection of new and recent essays from an international team of eminent scholars represents the best contemporary critical thinking relating to both literary and philosophical studies of literature. Helpfully groups essays into the field's main sub-categories, among them ‘Relations Between Philosophy and Literature’, ‘Emotional Engagement and the Experience of Reading’, ‘Literature and the Moral Life’, and ‘Literary Language’ Offers a combination of analytical precision and literary richness Represents an unparalleled work of reference for students and specialists alike, ideal for course use

Author: Doug Bolling
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description

Author: Christopher New
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134825196
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
Literature, like the visual arts, poses its own philosophical problems. While literary theorists have discussed the nature of literature intensively, analytic philosophers have usually dealt with literary problems either within the general framework of aesthetics or else in a way that is accessible only to a philosophical audience. The present book is unique in that it introduces the philosophy of literature from an analytic perspective accessible to both students of literature and students of philosophy. Specifically, the book addresses: the definition of literature, the distinction between oral and written literature and the identity of literary works the nature of fiction and our emotional involvement with fictional characters the concept of imagination and its role in the apprehension of literary works theories of metaphor and postmodernist theory on the significance of the authors' intentions to the interpretationof their work an examination of the relevance of thruth and morality to literary appreciation Lucid and well organised and free from jargon, hilosophy of Literature: An Introduction offers fresh approaches to traditional problems and raises new issues in the philosophy of literature.

Author: Lowell Kleiman
Publisher: Paragon House Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 642

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Book Description
Philosophy and literature are natural allies--philosophy supplying perennial themes raised anew from one generation to the next, literature providing vivid illustrations of the meaning and poignancy of abstract thought. Illuminates basic philosophical concepts through literary worksThis unique text introduces students to philosophy through the medium of great literature. The book is divided into seven parts, each devoted to the illumination of a basic philosophical concept-such as Knowledge, Truth, Personal Identity, Ethics, and justice through the use of literary selections from Sophocles (Oedipus the King), James Joyce (Araby), Kafka (The Metamorphosis), and John Dos Passos (The House of Morgan), among many others. The editors have given special attention to choosing the right combination of literary piece and philosophical issue to ensure that the story or play lend itself to philosophical scrutiny. Selections of the best philosophical writingsThe questions raised by these selections are then explored further through some of the best philosophical writings available, including the writings of Aristotle, William James, Plato, Locke, John Stuart. Mill, and many other classic philosophers, as well as contemporary pieces from Richard Rorty, Peter Unger, John Rawls, John Hick, and others. In each chapter, the editors have attempted to include the clearest presentation of a particular point of view, sometimes going back to an earlier article not generally found in other current texts. Throughout, they have made an effort to balance the analytic tradition with hermeneutics and feminist philosophy. Excellent introduction for studentsEvery chapter is introduced with an essay by the editors that provides a unifying thread through the various philosophical and literary pieces that follow. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and suggestions for further study. The result is a volume that will provide students with a valuable tool for illuminating timeless, as well as contemporary issues, and an introduction to philosophy that they will remember and to which they can return over and over again.

Author: Magnus Moar
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781091687929
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 119

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Book Description
This introduction to Philosophy in Literature examines the ways in which authors in the British, American and Continental literary traditions have explored human nature through the lenses of the philosophical influences of their times. As opposed to a text on the Philosophy of Literature, or Philosophy as Literature, this book looks at the way in which philosophical ideas have been pursued by these authors and examines the philosophical works they draw upon. With four distinct, yet interconnected, themes, the text looks at aspects of human nature that have fascinated writers and provided the stimulus for some of their works. From the problem of free will and human responsibility, to the notion of the 'hidden' primitivity of man; from our anxieties over death, to our abandonment by God, this text examines literary works from Marlowe through to Greene and philosophers from Plato through to Sartre. This study provides a fascinating insight into both philosophy and literary analysis and offers an account of the intellectual contexts from which these works have emerged. At the heart of these writings is the fundamental question of what it is to be, and how we go about being; this is a question that has troubled authors and philosophers alike. Rather than merely offering an insight into the aesthetic value of literature, this text engages the authors' use of philosophical ideas in their writings and considers the philosophical works that they are directly or indirectly drawing on.

Author: Richard Eldridge
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199724105
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Literature contains twenty-three newly commissioned essays by major philosophers and literary scholars that investigate literature as a form of attention to human life. Various forms of attention are considered under the headings of Genres (from Ancient Epic to the Novel and Contemporary Experimental Writing), Periods (from Realism and Romanticism to Postcolonialism), Devices and Powers (Imagination, Plot, Character, Style, and Emotion), and Contexts and Uses (in relation to inquiry, morality, and politics). In each case, the effort is to track and evaluate how specific modes and works of imaginative literature answer to important needs of human subjects for orientation, the articulation of interest in life, and the working through of emotion, within situations that are both sociohistorical and human. Hence these essays show how and why literature matters in manifold ways in and for human cultural life, and they show how philosophers and imaginative literary writers have continually both engaged with and criticized each other.

Author: Michael Weston
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134544782
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
In this provocative new examination of the philosophical, moral and religious significance of literature, Michael Weston explores the role of literature in both analytic and continental traditions. He initiates a dialogue between them and investigates the growing importance of these issues for major contemporary thinkers. Each chapter explores a philosopher or literary figure who has written on the relation between literature and the good life, such as Derrida, Kierkegaard, Murdoch and Blanchot. Challenging and insightful, Philosophy, Literature and the Human Good is ideal for all students of philosophy and literature.

Author: Cameron Thompson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780595187560
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Philosophy and Literature became a classic interdisciplinary study when it first appeared. It remained in print for 25 years, and was used by both high school and college teachers. Now that interdisciplinary approaches are again highly valued, this anthology of philosophical ideas represented in great literature has made its way back into print. Poetry, plays, novels and short stories are all included, with a biography of each author. Four main selections are based on the Platonic ideas of truth, beauty, and goodness, with a section on commitment which has a modern relevance. Philosophical works introduce each literary section. There are many questions for students, along with introductions to the thought of each philosopher. Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and Kant are included, but most of the philosophers are from the 20th century, like most of the authors. Prominent American women are featured among the writers. This is a 600 page book which can easily serve as course material for a year or two semesters. It was designed for both strong high school and college students. It is ideal for General Education courses (and is used at Roger Williams University, for example, this way). Many MySpace pages cite this book as "My favorite book, " or "My favorite pastime"! School departments report "We are married to this book!"

Author: Brett Bourbon
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674028597
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Approaching the study of literature as a unique form of the philosophy of language and mind--as a study of how we produce nonsense and imagine it as sense--this is a book about our human ways of making and losing meaning. Brett Bourbon asserts that our complex and variable relation with language defines a domain of meaning and being that is misconstrued and missed in philosophy, in literary studies, and in our ordinary understanding of what we are and how things make sense. Accordingly, his book seeks to demonstrate how the study of literature gives us the means to understand this relationship. The book itself is framed by the literary and philosophical challenges presented by Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. With reference to these books and the problems of interpretation and meaning that they pose, Bourbon makes a case for the fundamental philosophical character of the study of literature, and for its dependence on theories of meaning disguised as theories of mind. Within this context, he provides original accounts of what sentences, fictions, non-fictions, and poems are; produces a new account of the logical form of fiction and of the limits of interpretation that follow from it; and delineates a new and fruitful domain of inquiry in which literature, philosophy, and science intersect. Table of Contents: Preface Note on Abbreviations Introduction: What Are We When We Are Not? Part I The Surface of Language and the Absence of Meaning 1. From Soul-Making to Person-Making 2. The Logical Form of Fiction 3. The Emptiness of Literary Interpretation 4. To Be But Not To Mean 5. How Do Oracles Mean? Part II Senses and Nonsenses: Joyce's Finnegans Wake and Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations 6. A Twitterlitter of Nonsense: Askesis at Finnegans Wake 7. The Analogy between Persons and Words 8. "The Human Body Is the Best Picture of the Human Soul" 9. The Senses of Time 10. Being Something and Meaning Something Bibliography Acknowledgments Index This is an adventurous and unusual book. Bourbon moves back and forth between literary and philosophical contexts with ease, showing in multifarious ways how the one can, often in unexpected ways, illuminate the other. Throughout these wide-ranging explorations Bourbon uncovers a good deal about both the nature of literary meaning and our distinctive -- if tellingly irreducible -- relations to literary texts. --Garry L. Hagberg, author of Art as Language: Wittgenstein, Meaning, and Aesthetic Theory and Meaning and Interpretation: Wittgenstein, Henry James, and Literary Knowledge

Author: Barry Stocker
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137547944
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 779

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Book Description
This comprehensive Handbook presents the major perspectives within philosophy and literary studies on the relations, overlaps and tensions between philosophy and literature. Drawing on recent work in philosophy and literature, literary theory, philosophical aesthetics, literature as philosophy and philosophy as literature, its twenty-nine chapters plus substantial Introduction and Afterword examine the ways in which philosophy and literature depend on each other and interact, while also contrasting with each other in that they necessarily exclude or incorporate each other. This book establishes an enduring framework for structuring the broad themes defining the relations between philosophy and literature and organising the main topics in the field. Key Features • Structured in five parts addressing philosophy as literature, philosophy of literature, philosophical aesthetics, literary criticism and theory, and main areas of work within philosophy and literature • An Introduction setting out the main concerns of the field through discussion of the major themes along with the individual topics • An Afterword looking at the interactions between philosophy and literature through itself enacting philosophical and literary writing while examining the question of how they can be brought together The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Literature is an essential resource for scholars, researchers and advanced students in philosophy of literature, philosophy as literature, literary theory, literature as philosophy, and the philosophical aesthetics of literature. It is an ideal volume for researchers, advanced students and scholars in philosophy, literary studies, philosophy and literature, cultural studies, classical studies and other related fields.