In this searching and wide-ranging book, Timothy J. Reiss seeks to explain how the concept of literature that we accept today first took shape between the mid-sixteenth century and the early seventeenth, a time of cultural transformation. Drawing on literary, political, and philosophical texts from Central and Western Europe, Reiss maintains that by the early eighteenth century divergent views concerning gender, politics, science, taste, and the role of the writer had consolidated, and literature came to be regarded as an ...
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In this searching and wide-ranging book, Timothy J. Reiss seeks to explain how the concept of literature that we accept today first took shape between the mid-sixteenth century and the early seventeenth, a time of cultural transformation. Drawing on literary, political, and philosophical texts from Central and Western Europe, Reiss maintains that by the early eighteenth century divergent views concerning gender, politics, science, taste, and the role of the writer had consolidated, and literature came to be regarded as an embodiment of universal values. During the second half of the sixteenth century, Reiss asserts, conceptual consensus was breaking down, and many Western Europeans found themselves overwhelmed by a sense of social decay. A key element of this feeling of catastrophe, Reiss points out, was the assumption that thought and letters could not affect worldly reality. Demonstrating that a political discourse replaced the no-longer-viable discourse of theology, he looks closely at the functions that letters served in the reestablishment of order. He traces the development of the idea of literature in texts by Montaigne, Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, and Cervantes, among others; through seventeenth-century writings by such authors as Davenant, Boileau, Dryden, Rymer, Anne Dacier, Astell, and Leibniz; to eighteenth-century works including those of Addison, Pope, Batteux and Hutcheson, Burke, Lessing, Kant, and Wollstonecraft. Reiss follows key strands of the tradition, particularly the concept of the sublime, into the nineteenth century through a reading of Hegel's Aesthetics. The Meaning of Literature will contribute to current debates concerning cultural dominance and multiculturalism. It will be welcomed by anyone interested in literature and in cultural studies, including literary theorists and historians, comparatists, intellectual historians, historical sociologists, and philosophers.
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Add this copy of The Meaning of Literature to cart. $7.50, very good condition, Sold by The Haunted Bookshop rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Iowa City, IA, UNITED STATES, published 1992 by Cornell University Press.
Add this copy of The Meaning of Literature to cart. $11.20, very good condition, Sold by BookHouse On-Line rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Minneapolis, MN, UNITED STATES, published 1992 by Cornell University Press.
Add this copy of The Meaning of Literature to cart. $11.69, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1991 by Cornell University Press.
Add this copy of The Meaning of Literature to cart. $12.00, like new condition, Sold by Chaparral Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Portland, OR, UNITED STATES, published 1991 by Cornell University Press.
Add this copy of The Meaning of Literature to cart. $15.00, like new condition, Sold by Murphy-Brookfield Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Iowa City, IA, UNITED STATES, published 1992 by Cornell Univ Pr.
Add this copy of The Meaning of Literature to cart. $22.23, good condition, Sold by Anybook rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Lincoln, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1992 by Cornell University Press.
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Seller's Description:
This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside. This book has soft covers. In good all round condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item, 650grams, ISBN: 9780801499470.
Add this copy of The Meaning of Literature to cart. $40.55, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1991 by Cornell University Press.
Add this copy of The Meaning of Literature to cart. $88.00, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1991 by Cornell University Press.
