1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910960621503321

Autore

Sell Roger D

Titolo

Literature as communication : the foundations of mediating criticism / / Roger D. Sell

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Amsterdam ; ; Philadelphia, : J. Benjamins Pub. Co., c2000

ISBN

9786612163166

9781282163164

1282163167

9789027298966

9027298963

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (366 p.)

Collana

Pragmatics & beyond ; ; new ser. 78

Classificazione

HD 210

Disciplina

801/.95

Soggetti

Criticism

Literature - History and criticism

Pragmatics

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 (p. [303]-332) and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

LITERATURE AS COMMUNICATION -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC data -- Dedication -- Table of contents -- Acknowledgements -- Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. A-Historical De-Humanization -- Chapter 3. The Historically Human -- Chapter 4. Literature as Communication -- Chapter 5. Interactive Consequences -- Chapter 6. Mediating Criticism -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Name Index -- Subject Index -- PRAGMATICS AND BEYOND NEW SERIES.

Sommario/riassunto

This book offers foundations for a literary criticism which seeks to mediate between writers and readers belonging to different historical periods or social groupings. This makes it, among other things, a timely intervention in the postmodern "culture wars", though the theory put forward will be of interest not only to students of literature and culture, but also to linguists. Sell describes communication in general as strongly interactive, as very much affected by the disparate situationalities of "sending" and "receiving", yet as by no means completely determined by them. Seen this way, men and women are both social beings and individuals, capable of empathizing with



sociohistorical formations which are alien to them, sometimes even to the extent of changing their own life-world. By treating literary activity as communicational in this same dynamic sense, Sell radically modifies the main paradigms of twentieth-century literary theory, casting much new light on questions of genre, interpretation, affect and ethics.