The World, the Text, and the CriticThis extraordinarily wide-ranging work represents a new departure for contemporary literary theory. Author of Beginnings and the controversial Orientalism, Edward Said demonstrates that modern critical discourse has been impressively strengthened by the writings of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, for example, and by such influences as Marxism, structuralism, linguistics, and psychoanalysis. He argues, however, that the various methods and schools have had a crippling effect through their tendency to force works of literature to meet the requirements of a theory or system, ignoring the complex affiliations binding the texts to the world. The critic must maintain a distance both from critical systems and from the dogmas and orthodoxies of the dominant culture, Said contends. He advocates freedom of consciousness and responsiveness to history, to the exigencies of the text, to political, social, and human values, to the heterogeneity of human experience. These characteristics are brilliantly exemplified in his own analyses of individual authors and works. Combining the principles and practice of criticism, the book offers illuminating investigations of a number of writersSwift, Conrad, Lukacs, Renan, and many others-and of concepts such as repetition, originality, worldliness, and the roles of audiences, authors, and speakers. It asks daring questions, investigates problems of urgent significance, and gives a subtle yet powerful new meaning to the enterprise of criticism in modern society. |
Contents
Secular Criticism | 1 |
The World the Text and the Critic | 31 |
Swifts Tory Anarchy | 54 |
Copyright | |
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activity affiliation Auerbach authority become called century Conrad course critical consciousness culture Derrida Descartes described discipline discourse dominant E. P. Thompson English English studies essay European existence fact filiation Foucault François Jacob Goldmann Gramsci Gulliver's Travels human Ibid ideas important institutions intellectual interest interpretation Islam knowledge language less linguistic literary criticism literary theory literature Lord Jim Louis Bonaparte Lukacs Mallarmé Marlow Marx Marxist Massignon matter means method Michel Foucault modern narrative notion novel object Orientalism originality Paris philology philosophy political position possible present problem produced question R. P. Blackmur reader reading reality reification relationship Renaissance Renan repetition role scholar scholarship Schwab seems sense situation social society sort speak Swift text's textual theoretical theory things thought tion tive tradition trans ture University Press verbal Vico Western words worldly writing Zahirite