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Author: John Gardner Publisher: Open Road Media ISBN: 1480409219 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 258
Book Description
“Fearless, illuminating” criticism from a New York Times–bestselling author and legendary teacher, “proving . . . that true art is moral and not trivial” (Los Angeles Times). Novelist John Gardner’s thesis in On Moral Fiction is simple: “True art is by its nature moral.” It is also an audacious statement, as Gardner asserts an inherent value in life and in art. Since the book’s first publication, the passion behind Gardner’s assertion has both provoked and inspired readers. In examining the work of his peers, Gardner analyzes what has gone wrong, in his view, in modern art and literature, and how shortcomings in artistic criticism have contributed to the problem. He develops his argument by showing how artists and critics can reintroduce morality and substance to their work to improve society and cultivate our morality. On Moral Fiction is an essential read in which Gardner presents his thoughtfully developed criteria for the elements he believes are essential to art and its creation. This ebook features an illustrated biography of John Gardner, including original letters, rare photos, and never-before-seen documents from the Gardner family and the University of Rochester Archives.
Author: John Gardner Publisher: Open Road Media ISBN: 1480409219 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 258
Book Description
“Fearless, illuminating” criticism from a New York Times–bestselling author and legendary teacher, “proving . . . that true art is moral and not trivial” (Los Angeles Times). Novelist John Gardner’s thesis in On Moral Fiction is simple: “True art is by its nature moral.” It is also an audacious statement, as Gardner asserts an inherent value in life and in art. Since the book’s first publication, the passion behind Gardner’s assertion has both provoked and inspired readers. In examining the work of his peers, Gardner analyzes what has gone wrong, in his view, in modern art and literature, and how shortcomings in artistic criticism have contributed to the problem. He develops his argument by showing how artists and critics can reintroduce morality and substance to their work to improve society and cultivate our morality. On Moral Fiction is an essential read in which Gardner presents his thoughtfully developed criteria for the elements he believes are essential to art and its creation. This ebook features an illustrated biography of John Gardner, including original letters, rare photos, and never-before-seen documents from the Gardner family and the University of Rochester Archives.
Author: Mark Alfano Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1139620096 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 237
Book Description
Everyone wants to be virtuous, but recent psychological investigations suggest that this may not be possible. Mark Alfano challenges this theory and asks, not whether character is empirically adequate, but what characters human beings could have and develop. Although psychology suggests that most people do not have robust character traits such as courage, honesty and open-mindedness, Alfano argues that we have reason to attribute these virtues to people because such attributions function as self-fulfilling prophecies - children become more studious if they are told that they are hard-working and adults become more generous if they are told that they are generous. He argues that we should think of virtue and character as social constructs: there is no such thing as virtue without social reinforcement. His original and provocative book will interest a wide range of readers in contemporary ethics, epistemology, moral psychology and empirically informed philosophy.
Author: Russell Blackford Publisher: Springer ISBN: 3319616854 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 210
Book Description
In this highly original book, Russell Blackford discusses the intersection of science fiction and humanity’s moral imagination. With the rise of science and technology in the 19th century, and our continually improving understanding of the cosmos, writers and thinkers soon began to imagine futures greatly different from the present. Science fiction was born out of the realization that future technoscientific advances could dramatically change the world. Along with the developments described in modern science fiction - space societies, conscious machines, and upgraded human bodies, to name but a few - come a new set of ethical challenges and new forms of ethics. Blackford identifies these issues and their reflection in science fiction. His fascinating book will appeal to anyone with an interest in philosophy or science fiction, or in how they interact. “This is a seasoned, balanced analysis of a major issue in our thinking about the future, seen through the lens of science fiction, a central art of our time. Everyone from humanists to technologists should study these ideas and examples. Blackford’s book is wise and savvy, and a delight to read as well.” Greg Benford, author of Timescape.
Author: Maria Franca Sibau Publisher: State University of New York Press ISBN: 1438469918 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 246
Book Description
Reading for the Moral offers an innovative reassessment of the nature of moral representation and exemplarity in Chinese vernacular fiction. Maria Franca Sibau focuses on two little-studied story collections published at the end of the Ming dynasty, Exemplary Words for the World (Xingshi yan, 1632) and Bell in the Still Night (Qingye zhong, c. 1645). Far from being tediously moralistic tales, these stories of loyal ministers, filial children, chaste widows, and selfless friends provide a deeper understanding of the five cardinal relationships central to Confucian ethics. They explore the inherent tension between what we might call textbook morality, on the one hand, and untidy everyday life, on the other. The stories often take a critical view of mechanical notions of retribution, countering it with the logic of virtue as its own reward. Conflict between passion and duty is typically resolved in favor of duty, a duty redefined with a palpable sense of urgency. In constructing vernacular representations of moral exemplars from the recent historical past rather than from remote or fictitious antiquity, the story compilers show how these virtues are not abstract or monolithic norms, but play out within the contingencies of time and space.
Author: Michael E. Price Publisher: University of Georgia Press ISBN: 9780820321325 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 414
Book Description
Stories with a Moral is the first comprehensive study of the effects of plantation society on literature and the influences of literature on social practices in nineteenth-century Georgia. During the years of frontier settlement, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, Georgia authors voiced their support for the slave system, the planter class, and the ideals of the Confederacy, presenting a humorous, passionate, and at times tragic view of a rapidly changing world. Michael E. Price examines works of fiction, travel accounts, diaries, and personal letters in this thorough survey of King Cotton's literary influence, showing how Georgia authors romanticized agrarian themes to present an appealing image of plantation economy and social structure. Stories with a Moral focuses on the importance of literature as a mode of ideological communication. Even more significant, the book shows how the writing of one century shaped the development of social practices and beliefs that persist, in legend and memory, to this day.
Author: Barry Unsworth Publisher: Anchor ISBN: 0525434097 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 210
Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book In medieval England, a runaway scholar-priest named Nicholas Barber has joined a traveling theater troupe as they make their way toward their liege lord’s castle. In need of money, they decide to perform at a village en route. When their traditional morality plays fail to garner them an audience, they begin to stage the “the play of Thomas Wells”—their own depiction of the real-life drama unfolding within the village around the murder of a young boy. The villagers believe they have already identified the killer, and the troupe believes their play will be a straightforward depiction of justice served. But soon the players soon learn that the details of the crime are elusive, and the lines between performance and reality become blurred as they discover, scene by scene, line by line, what really happened. Thought-provoking and unforgettable, Morality Play is at once a masterful work of historical fiction, a gripping murder mystery, and a literary work of the first order.
Author: Garry Hagberg Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0198715714 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 402
Book Description
These new essays explore central aspects of the ethical content of literature: character, its formation, and its role in moral discernment; poetic vision in the context of ethical understanding; self-identity and self-understanding; literature's role in moral growth and change; and the historical background of the ethical dimension of literature.
Author: John M. Steadman Publisher: University of Missouri Press ISBN: 9780826210173 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 234
Book Description
Steadman suggests that these poets, along with most other Renaissance poets, did not actually regard themselves as divinely inspired but, rather, resorted to a common fiction to create the appearance of having special insight into the truth.
Author: Elizabeth Ammons Publisher: University of Iowa Press ISBN: 1587299224 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 214
Book Description
The activist tradition in American literature has long testified to the power of words to change people and the power of people to change the world, yet in recent years many professional humanists have chosen to distract themselves with a postmodern fundamentalism of indeterminacy and instability rather than engage with social and political issues. Throughout her bold and provocative call to action, Elizabeth Ammons argues that the responsibility now facing humanists is urgent: inside and outside academic settings, they need to revive the liberal arts as a progressive cultural force that offers workable ideas and inspiration in the real-world struggle to achieve social and environmental justice. Brave New Words challenges present and future literary scholars and teachers to look beyond mere literary critique toward the concrete issue of social change and how to achieve it. Calling for a profound realignment of thought and spirit in the service of positive social change, Ammons argues for the continued importance of multiculturalism in the twenty-first century despite attacks on the concept from both right and left. Concentrating on activist U.S. writers—from ecocritics to feminists to those dedicated to exposing race and class biases, from Jim Wallis and Cornel West to Winona LaDuke and Paula Moya and many others—she calls for all humanists to link their work to the progressive literature of the last half century, to insist on activism in the service of positive change as part of their mission, and to teach the power of hope and action to their students. As Ammons clearly demonstrates, much of American literature was written to expose injustice and motivate readers to work for social transformation. She challenges today’s academic humanists to address the issues of hope and purpose by creating a practical activist pedagogy that gives students the knowledge to connect their theoretical learning to the outside world. By relying on the transformative power of literature and replacing nihilism and powerlessness with conviction and faith, the liberal arts can offer practical, useful inspiration to everyone seeking to create a better world.
Author: Joyce Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 019888186X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
Atheism is a familiar kind of skepticism about religion. Moral error theory is an analogous kind of skepticism about morality, though less well known outside academic circles. Both kinds of skeptic face a "what next?" question: If we have decided that the subject matter (religion/morality) is mistaken, then what should we do with this way of talking and thinking? The natural assumption is that we should abolish the mistaken topic, just as we previously eliminated talk of, say, bodily humors and unicorns. The fictionalist, however, offers a less obvious recommendation. According to the fictionalist, engaging in the topic in question provides pragmatic benefits that do not depend on its truth-in a way roughly analogous to engaging with a novel or a movie. The religious fictionalist maintains that even if we were atheists, we should carry on talking, thinking, and acting as if religion were true. The moral fictionalist maintains a similar view regarding moral talk, thought, and action. Both forms of fictionalism face serious challenges. Some challenges can be levelled at either form of fictionalism (or at any form of fictionalism), whereas others are problems unique to moral fictionalism or to religious fictionalism. There are important questions to be asked about the relationship between these two kinds of fictionalism. Could moral fictionalism be plausible even if religious fictionalism is not (or vice versa)? This is a volume of thirteen previously unpublished papers on the topics of religious fictionalism, moral fictionalism, and the relation between these views.
Author: John Gardner
Author: John Gardner
Author: Mark Alfano
Author: Russell Blackford
Author: Maria Franca Sibau
Author: Michael E. Price
Author: Barry Unsworth
Author: Garry Hagberg
Author: John M. Steadman
Author: Elizabeth Ammons
Author: Joyce