
Language, Text, Subject
Critique of Hispanism
Malcolm K. Read(Author)
Purdue University Press
Published on 30. December 1992
Book
Hardback
209 pages
978-1-55753-027-1 (ISBN)
Description
The central concern of this radically innovative study is tooffer a critique of traditional Hispanism in the light of its assumption of atranscendental subject and its corresponding insistence on the autonomy of theliterary text. Rereading canonic Spanish texts from Renaissance humanism tomodernist literature, Read deploys a theoretical basis of post-structuralistthinking and brings Kristeva, Foucault, Althusser, Eagleton, and otherimportant theorists to bear on a field hardly touched by such approaches. Chapters 1 and 2, dealing with Garcilaso de la Vega andCalderonian drama, respectively, argue the need to relate cultural development tothe transition from medieval organicism to bourgeois animism. Chapters 3 and 4,which treat the Enlightenment figures Martin Sarmiento and Jovellanos, show howrationalism presupposes a binding of the body (of language). Chapters 5 and 6argue that the neo-idealist view of language in modern linguistics andliterature posits an overdetermined subject, which is a symptom of and areaction to the reification of capitalism. Read's study not only provides new readings of canonic textsbut also brings under critical scrutiny some of the assumptions about the humansubject and the role of writing and literature that are implicit in theconstruction of the field of Hispanism itself. Language, Text, Subject is recommended for scholars and students ofliterary theory and Spanish literature, culture, and linguistics.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
West Lafayette
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 237 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
540 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-55753-027-1 (9781557530271)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Malcolm K. Read is the author of four other books including Visions in Exile: Language and the Body in Spanish Literature and Linguistics, 1500-1800 and Jorge Luis Borges and his Predecessors.