1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910455869003321

Autore

Martin Thomas L. <1960->

Titolo

Poiesis and possible worlds : a study in modality and literary theory / / Thomas L. Martin

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, [Canada] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2004

©2004

ISBN

1-282-02270-9

9786612022708

1-4426-7857-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (209 p.)

Disciplina

801

Soggetti

Literature - Philosophy

Semantics (Philosophy)

Possibility

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Part One: Paradoxes -- Chapter One. The Paradox of the Many: Post-Structuralism and Zeno -- Chapter Two. The Paradox of the One: Language as Universal Medium -- Part Two: Possible Worlds -- Chapter Three. Talk of Possible Worlds; Language as Calculus -- Chapter Four. The Poiesis of Possible Worlds; A Theory of Possibility for Literature -- Part Three: Poiesis -- Chapter Five. From Models to Metaphors; Possibility, Aesthetics, and Literary Theory -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Author Index

Sommario/riassunto

In Poiesis and Possible Worlds, Thomas L. Martin makes a highly focused intervention in the debate about poststructuralist and postmodern theorizing and offers a philosophical approach to some of the controversial tenets of recent theorists. The result is an important addition to the existing literature on the usefulness of possible worlds theory for literature.Martin argues that literary studies remain mired in the anomalies of a linguistic methodology derived from early



twentieth-century language philosophy, a view challenged not only by theoretical physics, but also by compelling advances in philosophic semantics. The possible-worlds theory of this book moves beyond the understanding of language as an inescapable medium and toward a view of language as calculus, a theoretical outlook that provides richer means to model a wide range of literary worlds. These possible-worlds insights apply to several fundamental issues in literary and critical theory: not to a theory of fiction as other possible-worlds theorists have suggested, but at a lower level to the definition of literature, to verbal figuration in the theory of metaphor, and to models of reading.Well written and argued, Poiesis and Possible World will be of particular interest to literary critics, aestheticians, and philosophers of language.