Narrative Structure and Philosophical Debates in Tristram Shandy and Jacques le fataliste. PDF Download

Author: Margaux Whiskin
Publisher: MHRA
ISBN: 1781880166
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Contrary to what might be expected from a philosophical novel, Sterne and Diderot do not impose their own views upon the reader. The author’s voice is but one amongst many others. Margaux Whiskin’s argument hinges on Bakhtinian dialogism, which can be defined as the presence of interacting voices and views. In Tristram Shandy and Jacques le fataliste, dialogism occurs through the narrative structure allowing for the confrontation of the contradictory discourses in the philosophical debates, and enabling them to engage in dialogue, instead of establishing the authorial voice as the sole valid discourse in the text. Through those contradictions, the philosophical content takes on a different form, that of a refusal of systematic discourse. Sterne and Diderot do not offer a solution to the various questions debated in their novels. However, they do offer a philosophical approach whereby the confrontation of contradictory ideas creates a dynamic for the pursuit of truth. By engaging in dialogue and constantly opening questions where there is no single right answer, Sterne and Diderot redirect the focus of the reader and invite him to perceive truth not as a destination to be reached, or as a closed conclusion, but as being present in the quest itself, in the ongoing dialogues and debates. Normal 0 false false false FR JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:FR;}

Author: Margaux Elizabeth Whiskin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Author: Richard C. Raymond
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1839988649
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
The first four chapters of the book provide a close reading of the satiric, comic, and tragic action of Laurence Sterne’s novel in the context of criticism from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Chapter 5 provides a summary of Chapters 1–4, focusing on Sterne’s purpose in revising satiric plot structures and in blurring the lines between fiction and autobiography. Chapters 6–8 then examine Sterne’s themes from TristramShandythat inform his letters, sermons, and other fiction; Chapter 9 discusses the international reception of TristramShandy and argues for using writing-to-learn strategies to teach Sterne’s greatest novel to undergraduate and graduate students.

Author: Ryan J. Stark
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135017999X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
Is Laurence Sterne one of the great Christian apologists? Ryan Stark recommends him as such, perhaps to the detriment of the parson's roguish reputation. The book's aim, however, is not to dispel roguishness but rather to discern the theological motives behind Sterne's comic rhetoric, from Tristram Shandy and the sermons to A Sentimental Journey. To this end, Stark reveals a veritable avalanche of biblical themes and allusions to be found in Sterne, often and seemingly awkwardly in the middle of sex jokes, and yet the effect is not to produce irreverence. On the contrary, we find an irreverently reverent apologetic, Stark argues, and a priest who knows how to play gracefully with religious ideas. Through Sterne, in fact, we might rethink humour's role in the service of religion.

Author: Margaux Whiskin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1838608761
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Since the age of the Sasanian Empire (224-651 AD), Iran and the West have time and again appeared to be at odds. Iran and the West charts this contentious and complex relationship by examining the myriad ways the two have perceived each other, from antiquity to today. Across disciplines, perspectives and periods contributors consider literary, imagined, mythical, visual, filmic, political and historical representations of the 'other' and the ways in which these have been constructed in, and often in spite of, their specific historical contexts. Many of these narratives, for example, have their origin in the ancient world but have since been altered, recycled and manipulated to fit a particular agenda. Ranging from Tacitus, Leonidas and Xerxes via Shahriar Mandanipour and Azar Nafisi to Rosewater, Argo and 300, this inter-disciplinary and wide-ranging volume is essential reading for anyone working on the complex history, present and future of Iranian-Western relations.

Author: Denis Diderot
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780192838742
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Jacques the Fatalist is a provocative exploration of the problems of human existence, destiny, and free will. In the introduction to this brilliant translation, David Coward explains the philosophical basis of Diderot's fascination with fate and examines the experimental and influential literary techniques that make Jacques the Fatalist a classic of the Enlightenment.

Author: Frederick Garber
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027286167
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
This is the first collaborative international reading of irony as a major phenomenon in Romantic art and thought. The volume identifies key predecessor moments that excited Romantic authors and the emergence of a distinctly Romantic theory and practice of irony spreading to all literary genres. Not only the influential pioneer German, British, and French varieties, but also manifestations in northern, eastern, and southern parts of Europe as well as in North America, are considered. A set of concluding “syntheses” treat the shaping power of Romantic irony in narrative modes, music, the fine arts, and theater – innovations that will deeply influence Modernism. Thus the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach elaborated in the twenty chapters of Romantic Irony, as lead volume in the five-volume Romanticism series, establishes a significant new range for comparative literature studies in dealing with a complex literary movement. SPECIAL OFFER: 30% discount for a complete set order (5 vols.).The Romanticism series in the Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages is the result of a remarkable international collaboration. The editorial team coordinated the efforts of over 100 experts from more than two dozen countries to produce five independently conceived, yet interrelated volumes that show not only how Romanticism developed and spread in its principal European homelands and throughout the New World, but also the ways in which the affected literatures in reaction to Romanticism have redefined themselves on into Modernism. A glance at the index of each volume quickly reveals the extraordinary richness of the series’ total contents. Romantic Irony sets the broader experimental parameters of comparison by concentrating on the myriad expressions of “irony” as one of the major impulses in the Romantic philosophical and artistic revolution, and by combining cross-cultural and interdisciplinary studies with special attention also to literatures in less widely diffused language streams. Romantic Drama traces creative innovations that deeply altered the understanding of genre at large, fed popular imagination through vehicles like the opera, and laid the foundations for a modernist theater of the absurd. Romantic Poetry demonstrates deep patterns and a sharing of crucial themes of the revolutionary age which underlie the lyrical expression that flourished in so many languages and environments. Nonfictional Romantic Prose assists us in coping with the vast array of writings from the personal and intimate sphere to modes of public discourse, including Romanticism’s own self-commentary in theoretical statements on the arts, society, life, the sciences, and more. Nor are the discursive dimensions of imaginative literature neglected in the closing volume, Romantic Prose Fiction, where the basic Romantic themes and story types (the romance, novel, novella, short story, and other narrative forms) are considered throughout Europe and the New World. This enormous realm is seen not just in terms of Romantic theorizing, but in the light of the impact of Romantic ideas and narration on later generations. As an aid to readers, the introduction to Romantic Prose Fiction explains the relationships among the volumes in the series and carries a listing of their tables of contents in an appendix. No other series exists comparable to these volumes which treat the entirety of Romanticism as a cultural happening across the whole breadth of the “Old” and “New” Worlds and thus render a complex picture of European spiritual strivings in the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, a heritage still very close to our age.

Author: David Damrosch
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470671904
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1789

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Book Description
LITERATURE A WORLD HISTORY An exploration of the history of the world’s literatures and the many varieties of literary expression Literature: A World Historyencompasses all the world’s major literary traditions, emphasizing the interrelationship of local and national cultures over time. Spanning global literature from the beginnings of recorded history to the present day, this expansive four-volume set examines the many varieties of the world’s literatures in their social and intellectual contexts. Its four volumes are devoted to literature before 200 CE, from 200 to 1500, from 1500 to 1800, and from 1800 to 2000, with four dozen contributors providing new insights into the art of literature, and addressing the situation of literature in the world today. Organized throughout in six broad regions—Africa, the Americas, East Asia, Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, and West and Central Asia—Literature: A World History offers readers a clear and consistent treatment of diverse forms of literary expression across time and place. Throughout the text, particular emphasis is placed on literary institutions within different regional and linguistic cultures and on the relations between literature and a spectrum of social, political, and religious contexts. Features work by an international panel of leading scholars from around the globe, in Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, and the United States Provides a balanced overview of national and global literature from all major regions of the world from antiquity to the present Highlights the specificity of regional and local cultures throughout much of literary history, together with cross-cutting essays on topics such as different writing systems, court cultures, and utopias Literature: A World History is an invaluable reference work for undergraduate and graduate students as well as scholars looking for a wide-ranging overview of global literary history.

Author: Elizabeth Jane MacArthur
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400860822
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Challenging the view of epistolary narrative as a faulty precursor to the nineteenth-century realist novel, Elizabeth MacArthur argues that the openness and flexibility that characterize correspondences, both real and fictional, reflect the preoccupations of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Her readings of the Lettres portugaises, Mme du Deffand's correspondence with Horace Walpole, and Rousseau's La Nouvelle Hlose propose an alternative to closure-oriented theories of narrative as they uncover an interplay between two forces: a tendency towards closure and meaning (metaphor) and a tendency towards openness and desire (metonymy). While such an interplay structures all narrative, the epistolary form differs from the third or first person in the extent to which metonymy predominates. The author shows how critics and editors of correspondences have attempted to control their metonymy, channeling epistolary energy into univocal meaning. By juxtaposing real and fictional epistolary works, MacArthur reveals the similarities between the two, particularly their "extravagance": ambiguity, openness, and forward-moving energy. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Author: Teresa Bridgeman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134790066
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Applies insights from pragmatic theory to the French novel in order to examine its discourse conventions. Focusing on texts by some of the greatest and most innovative French novelists.