Generosity is an ambiguous quality, William Flesch observes; while receiving gifts is pleasant, gift-giving both displays the wealth and strength of the giver and places the receiver under an ...obligation. In provocative new readings of Shakespeare, Herbert, and Milton, Flesch illuminates the personal authority that is bound inextricably with acts of generosity. Drawing on the work of such theorists as Mauss, Blanchot, Bourdieu, Wittgenstein, Bloom, Cavell, and Greenblatt, Flesch maintains that the literary power of Shakespeare, Herbert, and Milton is at its most intense when they are exploring the limits of generosity. He considers how in Herbert's Temple divine assurance of the possibility of redemption is put into question and how the poet approaches such a gift with the ambivalence of a beneficiary. In his readings of Shakespeare's Richard II, Henry IV, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and the sonnets, Flesch examines the perspective of the benefactor—including Shakespeare himself—who confronts the decline of his capacity to give. Turning to Milton's Paradise Lost, Flesch identifies two opposing ways of understanding generosity—Satan's, on the one hand, and Adam and Eve's, on the other - and elaborates the different conceptions of poetry to which these understandings give rise. Scholars of Shakespeare and of Renaissance culture, Miltonists, literary theorists, and others interested in the relationship between philosophy and literature will want to read this insightful and challenging book.
Narrative and Noncausal Bargaining Flesch, William
NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction,
03/2012, Volume:
45, Issue:
1
Journal Article, Book Review
Peer reviewed
Most philosophical accounts of the puzzle of emotional engagement with characters we know to be fictional treat our emotion as static. This essay argues that it's part of the way humans interact with ...each other as a social species that a highly dynamic form of noncausal willing and noncausal bargaining enters into all our cooperative relationships with each other. Such bargaining can be illuminated by game theory and, in particular, by the version of prisoner's dilemma known as “Newcomb's problem.” Newcomb's problem models some of our most important relationships with each other and also some of the most central aspects of our relationship with narratives whose outcomes we care intensely about even though our caring cannot affect those outcomes. Fictional characters are especially immune to the exercise of a reader's or audience's will, so Newcomb's problem is particularly relevant to the noncausal nature of the bargaining that readers engage in.
Focusing on the growth and expansion of critical trends and methodologies, this book offers an introduction to the literary theory in North America. With essays addressing key figures in their ...historical and cultural contexts, it depicts the change, transformation, and the quest for and affirmation of multiple cultural voices and identities.
Introducing Literary Theories is an ideal introduction for those coming to literary theory for the first time. It provides an accessible introduction to the major theoretical approaches in chapters ...covering: Bakhtinian Criticism, Structuralism, Feminist Theory, Marxist Literary Theories, Reader-Response Theories, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Deconstruction, Poststructuralism, New Historicism, Cultural Materialism, Postcolonial Theory, Gay Studies/ Queer Theories, Cultural Studies and Postmodernism.A table of contents arranged by theoretical method and a second arranged by key texts offer the reader alternative pathways through the volume and a general introduction, which traces the history and importance of literary theory, complete the introductory material.In each of the following chapters, the authors provide a clear presentation of the theory in question and notes towards a reading of a key text to help the student understand both the methodology and the practice of literary theory. The texts used for illustration include: In Memoriam A. H. H., Middlemarch, Mrs Dalloway, Paradise Lost, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Prospero's Books, The Swimming Pool Library and The Tempest. Every chapter ends with a set of questions for further consideration, an annotated bibliography and a supplementary bibliography while a glossary of critical terms completes the book. Derived and adapted from the successful foundation textbook, Literary Theories: A Reader and Guide, Introducing Literary Theories is a highly readable, self-contained and comprehensive guide that succeeds in making contemporary theory easily understandable.Each chapter provides: ~ An overview of the theory~ Notes towards readings of canonical literary texts~ Questions for further consideration~ An annotated bibliography~ A supplementary bibliographyFeatures* Complex ideas are clea.
