{"product_id":"literary-meaning-isbn-9780631134589","title":"Literary Meaning","description":"This book is both a guide to, and interpretation of, the course of modern literary theory. Exploring the various theories of reading which have informed post-war literary criticism, it shows that for all the fervour of current debate about new movements in criticism, all these different approaches share at root a common notion of literary meaning. Introduction \u003cp\u003eThe Quest for Literary Meaning: A Historical Overview\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePhenomenology and the \"Intentionality\" of Meaning\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDeconstruction and the Challenge to Stable Interpretation\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart I: Foundations of Phenomenology\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eChapter 1: Edmund Husserl and the \"Transcendental Ego\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe concept of \"Noema\" and \"Noesis\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe \"Epoché\" or Bracketing Method\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eApplying Phenomenology to Literary Texts\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eChapter 2: Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the Body Subject\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEmbodiment and Perception\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe \"Flesh\" and Intercorporeality\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eImplications for Literary Experience\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart II: Deconstruction and the Critique of Meaning\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eChapter 3: Jacques Derrida and the \"Logocentrism\" Critique\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe \"Trace\" and \"Différance\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe \"Supplement\" and the Play of Language\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDeconstruction of Binary Oppositions\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eChapter 4: Key Concepts in Deconstruction\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eUndecidability\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAporia\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe \"Textual\" and the \"Contextual\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart III: Applying Deconstruction to Literature\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eChapter 5: Deconstructing Narrative Structure\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eUnreliable Narrators\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe \"Open Ending\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Role of Ambiguity\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eChapter 6: Deconstructing Character and Identity\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe \"Split Subject\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe \"Other\" in Literature\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eGender and Identity Politics in Deconstruction\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eChapter 7: Deconstructing Genre Conventions\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe \"Subversion\" of Genre\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe \"Hybrid\" Text\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Limits of Genre Classification\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eConclusion\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Legacy of Deconstruction in Literary Criticism\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBeyond Deconstruction: New Directions in Interpretation\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Ongoing Debate about Meaning and Interpretation\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cb\u003eWilliam Ray\u003c\/b\u003e is Associate Professor of French at Reed College, Oregon.  This book is both a guide to, and interpretation of, the course of modern literary theory. Exploring the various theories of reading which have informed post-war literary criticism, it shows that for all the fervour of current debate about new movements in criticism, all these different approaches share at root a common notion of literary meaning.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cp\u003eThrough a successive examination of the most influential theoretical works, William Ray provides the reader with a clear view of how literary critics have conceived their object of study and of how they have sought to grasp the nature of fictional meaning. Starting with the French and German critics who brought the notion of consciousness to the fore in the fifties and sixties, he proceeds lucidly through expositions of Reader Response Criticism, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Structuralism, Semiotics and finally Deconstruction.\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThese different schools, Ray argues, all implicitly acknowledge that one cannot account for literary meaning purely in terms of 'structures' or 'events', yet they have persisted in trying to do just that. Some writers, such as the psychoanalytic and reader response critics, see meaning as deriving from the author's intention or the individual act of reading. Others, notably the structuralists and semioticians, hold that meaning has its source in the shared conventions of an author's and reader's culture. The repeated failure of either position to provide a critical practice consistent with its theory has driven literary criticism towards post-structuralism. The paradoxical formulations of deconstruction are best understood, Ray suggests, as an extreme, but historically predictable, attempt to bring the 'structural' and the 'eventual' definitions of meaning together within a peculiarly elusive, perhaps inconceivable, notion.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Wiley-Blackwell","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47989535998181,"sku":"NP9780631134589","price":40.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780631134589.jpg?v=1761784504","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/literary-meaning-isbn-9780631134589","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}