Aesthetics and the Theory of Criticism

Aesthetics and the Theory of Criticism PDF Author: Arnold Isenberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226385124
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
"These sixteen essays by Arnold Isenberg "bring wide-ranging connoiseurship, intricate analysis, and epigrammatic literacy to bear on a number of glib and fuzzy oppositions between form and content, description and interpretation, perception and meaning, technique and substance, and belief and expression, articulating provocative strategies for illuminating the canon of the arts and the organ of criticism. . . . Any thoughtful lover of the arts could read this book with profit and inspiration."—Choice

Aesthetics and the Theory of Criticism

Aesthetics and the Theory of Criticism PDF Author: Arnold Isenberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226385124
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 362

Get Book Here

Book Description
"These sixteen essays by Arnold Isenberg "bring wide-ranging connoiseurship, intricate analysis, and epigrammatic literacy to bear on a number of glib and fuzzy oppositions between form and content, description and interpretation, perception and meaning, technique and substance, and belief and expression, articulating provocative strategies for illuminating the canon of the arts and the organ of criticism. . . . Any thoughtful lover of the arts could read this book with profit and inspiration."—Choice

Aesthetics, Theory and Interpretation of the Literary Work

Aesthetics, Theory and Interpretation of the Literary Work PDF Author: Paolo Euron
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004409238
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
This book introduces the reader to the literary work and to an understanding of its cultural background and its specific features. In doing so, it refers to two main traditions of Western culture: one of aesthetics and the theory of art and the other of literary theory. In our postmodern world, language and artistic creation (and above all literature as the art of language) occupy a special role in understanding the human world and become existential issues. A critical attitude requires knowledge of the relevant past in order to understand what we are today. The author presents key topics, ideas, and representatives of aesthetics, theory, and the interpretation of works of art in an historical perspective, in order to explain the Western tradition with constant attention to the present condition. Aesthetics, Theory and Interpretation of the Literary Work offers an outline of essential concepts and authors of aesthetics and theories of the literary work, presenting basic topics and ideas in their historical context and development, considering their relevance to the contemporary debate, and highlighting the specificity of the experience of the art work in our present world. The best way to approach a work of art is to enjoy it. In order to enjoy a literary work, we have to consider its correct context and its specific artistic qualities. The book is conceived as a general and enjoyable introduction to the experience of the work of art in Western culture. See inside the book.

On Criticism

On Criticism PDF Author: Noel Carroll
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134221304
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
In a recent poll of practicing art critics, 75 percent reported that rendering judgments on artworks was the least significant aspect of their job. This is a troubling statistic for philosopher and critic Noel Carroll, who argues that that the proper task of the critic is not simply to describe, or to uncover hidden meanings or agendas, but instead to determine what is of value in art. Carroll argues for a humanistic conception of criticism which focuses on what the artist has achieved by creating or performing the work. Whilst a good critic should not neglect to contextualize and offer interpretations of a work of art, he argues that too much recent criticism has ignored the fundamental role of the artist's intentions. Including examples from visual, performance and literary arts, and the work of contemporary critics, Carroll provides a charming, erudite and persuasive argument that evaluation of art is an indispensable part of the conversation of life.

Ugly Feelings

Ugly Feelings PDF Author: Sianne Ngai
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674041526
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
Envy, irritation, paranoia—in contrast to powerful and dynamic negative emotions like anger, these non-cathartic states of feeling are associated with situations in which action is blocked or suspended. In her examination of the cultural forms to which these affects give rise, Sianne Ngai suggests that these minor and more politically ambiguous feelings become all the more suited for diagnosing the character of late modernity. Along with her inquiry into the aesthetics of unprestigious negative affects such as irritation, envy, and disgust, Ngai examines a racialized affect called “animatedness,” and a paradoxical synthesis of shock and boredom called “stuplimity.” She explores the politically equivocal work of these affective concepts in the cultural contexts where they seem most at stake, from academic feminist debates to the Harlem Renaissance, from late-twentieth-century American poetry to Hollywood film and network television. Through readings of Herman Melville, Nella Larsen, Sigmund Freud, Alfred Hitchcock, Gertrude Stein, Ralph Ellison, John Yau, and Bruce Andrews, among others, Ngai shows how art turns to ugly feelings as a site for interrogating its own suspended agency in the affirmative culture of a market society, where art is tolerated as essentially unthreatening. Ngai mobilizes the aesthetics of ugly feelings to investigate not only ideological and representational dilemmas in literature—with a particular focus on those inflected by gender and race—but also blind spots in contemporary literary and cultural criticism. Her work maps a major intersection of literary studies, media and cultural studies, feminist studies, and aesthetic theory.

Guilty Aesthetic Pleasures

Guilty Aesthetic Pleasures PDF Author: Timothy Aubry
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674988965
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 143

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Book Description
In the wake of radical social movements in the 1960s and 1970s, literary studies’ embrace of politics entailed a widespread rejection of aesthetic considerations. For scholars invested in literature’s role in supporting or challenging dominant ideologies, appreciating literature’s formal beauty seemed frivolous and irresponsible, even complicit with the iniquities of the social order. This suspicion of aesthetics became the default posture within literary scholarship, a means of establishing the rigor of one’s thought and the purity of one’s political commitments. Yet as Timothy Aubry explains, aesthetic pleasure never fully disappeared from the academy. It simply went underground. From New Criticism to the digital humanities, Aubry recasts aesthetics as the complicated, morally ambiguous, embattled yet resilient protagonist in late twentieth-century and early twenty-first–century literary studies. He argues that academic critics never stopped asserting preferences for certain texts, rhetorical strategies, or intellectual responses. Rather than serving as the enemy of formalism and aesthetics, political criticism enabled scholars to promote heightened experiences of perceptual acuity and complexity while adjudicating which formal strategies are best designed to bolster these experiences. Political criticism, in other words, did not eradicate but served covertly to nurture reading practices aimed at achieving aesthetic satisfaction. Guilty Aesthetic Pleasures shows that literary studies’ break with midcentury formalism was not as clean as it once appeared. Today, when so many scholars are advocating renewed attention to textual surfaces and aesthetic experiences, Aubry’s work illuminates the surprisingly vast common ground between the formalists and the schools of criticism that succeeded them.

The Aesthetics of Chaos

The Aesthetics of Chaos PDF Author: Michael Patrick Gillespie
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813033464
Category : Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"An invigorating (and convincing) challenge to the cornerstone assumptions of virtually all contemporary literary criticism . . . this study lays the groundwork for a dynamic new approach to reading literature. Sure to be controversial, its fundamental right-headedness should help to open debate on the nature of literary criticism across numerous disciplines."--William W. Demastes, Louisiana State University Michael Patrick Gillespie employs concepts of post-Einsteinian physics as the metaphoric and dialectic foundation for an alternative method of interpreting literature. His central argument revolves around the notion that the most useful literary criticism is that which comes closest to the process of reading. He argues that since our reading is not circumscribed by Cartesian cause-and-effect principles, our literary criticism should not be bound by linear thinking. Using examples that range from the Book of Job to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Gillespie demonstrates how nonlinear perception vastly enhances one's ability to understand diverse forms of literature. Invoking theories from Einstein's views on relativity, quantum mechanics, and chaos theories, Gillespie applies his approach to different types of literary works, including a children's fantasy: the Bible, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Finnegans Wake. In each case, he compares a nonlinear model of criticism with the interpretation of established critical schools, focusing especially on elucidating both the weaknesses in those schools and the multiple legitimate textual meanings in these works. Providing clear, useful theoretical grounding in the basics of the new sciences, Gillespie draws from the fundamental thinking behind these new conceptions of material existence to articulate a paradigm of literary criticism that should be of value to all literary scholars. ?Michael Patrick Gillespie is Louise Edna Goeden Professor of English at Marquette University and author of several works, including Oscar Wilde and the Poetics of Ambiguity (UPF, 1996) and Joyce through the Ages (UPF, 1999).

Adorno's Theory of Philosophical and Aesthetic Truth

Adorno's Theory of Philosophical and Aesthetic Truth PDF Author: Owen Hulatt
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542208
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
In Adorno's Theory of Philosophical and Aesthetic Truth, Owen Hulatt undertakes an original reading of Theodor W. Adorno's epistemology and its material underpinnings, deepening our understanding of his theories of truth, art, and the nonidentical. Hulatt's novel interpretation casts Adorno's theory of philosophical and aesthetic truth as substantially unified, supporting the thinker's claim that both philosophy and art are capable of being true. For Adorno, truth is produced when rhetorical "texture" combines with cognitive "performance," leading to the breakdown of concepts that mediate the experience of the consciousness. Both philosophy and art manifest these features, although philosophy enacts these conceptual issues directly, while art does so obliquely. Hulatt builds a robust argument for Adorno's claim that concepts ineluctably misconstrue their objects. He also puts the still influential thinker into conversation with Hegel, Husserl, Frazer, Sohn-Rethel, Benjamin, Strawson, Dahlhaus, Habermas, and Caillois, among many others.

The Politics of Perception and the Aesthetics of Social Change

The Politics of Perception and the Aesthetics of Social Change PDF Author: Jason Miller
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231554095
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 125

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Book Description
In both politics and art in recent decades, there has been a dramatic shift in emphasis on representation of identity. Liberal ideals of universality and individuality have given way to a concern with the visibility and recognition of underrepresented groups. Modernist and postmodernist celebrations of disruption and subversion have been challenged by the view that representation is integral to social change. Despite this convergence, neither political nor aesthetic theory has given much attention to the increasingly central role of art in debates and struggles over cultural identity in the public sphere. Connecting Hegelian aesthetics with contemporary cultural politics, Jason Miller argues that both the aesthetic and political value of art are found in the reflexive self-awareness that artistic representation enables. The significance of art in modern life is that it shows us both the particular element in humanity as well as the human element in particularity. Just as Hegel asks us to acknowledge how different historical and cultural contexts produce radically different experiences of art, identity-based art calls on its audiences to situate themselves in relation to perspectives and experiences potentially quite remote—or even inaccessible—from their own. Miller offers a timely response to questions such as: How does contemporary art’s politics of perception contest liberal notions of deliberative politics? How does the cultural identity of the artist relate to the representations of cultural identity in their work? How do we understand and evaluate identity-based art aesthetically? Discussing a wide range of works of art and popular culture—from Antigone to Do the Right Thing and The Wire—this book develops a new conceptual framework for understanding the representation of cultural identity that affirms art’s capacity to effect social change.

The New Aestheticism

The New Aestheticism PDF Author: John J. Joughin
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719061394
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
This text introduces the notion of a new aestheticism - 'new' insofar as it identifies a turn taken by some contemporary thinkers towards the idea that focussing on the aesthetic impact of a work of art or literature has the potential to open different ways of thinking about identity, politics and culture.

A History of Literary Criticism

A History of Literary Criticism PDF Author: M. A. R. Habib
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405148845
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 848

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Book Description
This comprehensive guide to the history of literary criticism from antiquity to the present day provides an authoritative overview of the major movements, figures, and texts of literary criticism, as well as surveying their cultural, historical, and philosophical contexts. Supplies the cultural, historical and philosophical background to the literary criticism of each era Enables students to see the development of literary criticism in context Organised chronologically, from classical literary criticism through to deconstruction Considers a wide range of thinkers and events from the French Revolution to Freud’s views on civilization Can be used alongside any anthology of literary criticism or as a coherent stand-alone introduction