Literature and Understanding
The Value of a Close Reading of Literary Texts
1st Edition
Published on 9. October 2020
Book
Hardback
182 pages
978-0-367-33705-6 (ISBN)
Description
Literature and Understanding investigates the cognitive gain from literature by focussing on a reader's close analysis of a literary text. It examines the meaning of 'literature', outlines the most prominent positions in the literary cognitivism debate, explores the practice of close reading from a philosophical perspective, provides a fresh account of what we mean by 'understanding' and in so doing opens up a new area of research in the philosophy of literature.
This book provides a different reply to the challenge that we can't learn anything worthwhile from reading literary fiction. It makes the innovative case that reading literary fiction as literature rather than as fiction stimulates five relevant senses of understanding. The book uses examples of irony, metaphor, play with perspective and ambiguity to illustrate this contention. Before arguing that these five senses of understanding bridge the gap between our understanding of a literary text and our understanding of the world beyond that text.
The book will be of great interest for researchers, scholars and post-graduate students in the fields of aesthetics, literary theory, literature in education and pedagogy.
This book provides a different reply to the challenge that we can't learn anything worthwhile from reading literary fiction. It makes the innovative case that reading literary fiction as literature rather than as fiction stimulates five relevant senses of understanding. The book uses examples of irony, metaphor, play with perspective and ambiguity to illustrate this contention. Before arguing that these five senses of understanding bridge the gap between our understanding of a literary text and our understanding of the world beyond that text.
The book will be of great interest for researchers, scholars and post-graduate students in the fields of aesthetics, literary theory, literature in education and pedagogy.
Reviews / Votes
"All too often the philosophy of literature locates itself at one remove from its object of study. With a great lightness of touch, Jon Phelan takes his philosophical reflections into the heart of literature. In doing so, he provides illuminating discussions on the nature of literature and of the understanding before giving a comprehensive account of the relation between the two. This book is much to be recommended not only to philosophers, but also to literary scholars and those with a general interest in the humanities."Derek Matravers, Professor of Philosophy, The Open University
"Phelan demonstrates a familiarity with the work of many philosophers and literary theorists as well as with an impressive body of imaginative literature that includes poetry and drama, as well as fiction. [Phelan's] navigation of so many literary and philosophical texts makes the book both illuminating and enjoyable. His commitment to the fertility and resonance of literary texts from Shakespeare to Lionel Shriver is striking [...] One of the joys of the volume is Phelan's analysis of multiple literary texts, where he lies down 'in the word hoard'. He delights in drilling into the passages that he chooses and interrogates them with erudition and nuance. [...] [Ultimately] the book is very engaging and contains numerous exciting close readings by the author."
Dr Kevin Williams is Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection, School of Education, Dublin City University and also Research Fellow at the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies, Ireland.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
476 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-367-33705-6 (9780367337056)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
04/2022
1st Edition
Routledge
€63.00
Shipment within 15-20 days
E-Book
10/2020
1st Edition
Routledge
€55.49
Available for download
E-Book
10/2020
1st Edition
Routledge
€55.49
Available for download
Person
J. W. Phelan is Director of Studies in Philosophy at Wolfson College and at Homerton College, Cambridge. His research focusses on many different issues in the philosophy of literature and literary criticism.
Content
1. Literary Fiction as a Subgenre of Both Literature and Fiction. 2. Literary Cognitivism, Anti-cognitivism and Non-cognitivism. 3. Understanding Others from Understanding Literary Fiction. 4. The Cognitive Gain from Reading Literary Fiction as Literature. 5.How Understanding Literary Fiction relates to the World beyond Literary Fiction