Literature, Theory, History - by J Hart (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book discusses literature, theory and history in close relation. Its main focus is on comparative literature and history, culture, poetics, rhetoric, theatricality, genre and gender. The method blends my skills as a poet, historian and literary critic, so that there is a balance of close reading with theory and historical context. The enclosed Table of Contents will give an idea of the scope of the book, which begins with a section entitled, "Literature," including discussions of comparative literature, comparative narratives of European expansion into the New World, and the relation between literature and culture. It not only focuses on primary literary works, but key theoretical and historical texts. In the section on "Theory" questions of otherness, authority, recognition, comparison, possible worlds, imagination, comedy, difference, poetics and stereotyping all addressed in discussions of classical and modern texts and theorists of the past sixty years ranging from Jerome Bruner through George Steiner to Barbara Johnson. The third section, "History," examines the relation between poetry (literature) and history through a discussion of French and other translations of Bartolome de Las Casas, alternative critiques of colonialism, new historicism and a couple of historians of conquest and globalization. The book examines an array of work in key practical and theoretical areas and should appeal to those interested in literature, theory, culture and history. The audience will be, as is my usual hope with my books with Palgrave Macmillan, a combination of specialists, scholars outside the field, undergraduate and graduate (post-graduate) students and general readers.

Book Synopsis

This book discusses literature, theory and history in close relation. Its main focus is on comparative literature and history, culture, poetics, rhetoric, theatricality, genre and gender, and balances close reading with theory and historical context.

Review Quotes

"With respect for the 'messiness' of the text - another name for its irreducibility to other purposes - Hart considers the migratory history of literary studies in our time. His praise of comparison as a way of seeing lifts the discussion out of interdepartmental debates, and his history of the worldwide career of Las Casas demonstrates the unpredictable force of texts engaging with otherness." - Haun Saussy, University of Chicago and author of The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic and Great Walls of Discourse

"Hart (English and comparative literature, Univ. of Alberta, Canada) gives a history of comparative literary theory as affected by post-colonialism and globalization. He discusses the theory of the literature of conquest and the history of criticism as it examines race and "othering." He considers the key to his book to be "poetics and rhetoric, representation and the art of persuasion" and examines poetry in detail because of the coding the poetic voice uses and that voice's indirect relationship with the reader. Hart insists that interpretation is as old as Plato. Many (David Lodge comes to mind) would argue that criticism exists to support certain incestuous circles (English literature departments arguing for their own existence). However, Hart sees theory as a way of understanding poetry, theater, and literature. He asks for close reading and an understanding of the ways global literature speaks to other work and across cultures; he looks for reading and understanding to work in the context in which the work was written. In other words, he argues that before criticizing a writer or a work of literature, the reader must know history. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty" - Choice

About the Author

JONATHAN HART Professor in theDepartment of English and Acting andDirector of the Program in Comparative Literature at theUniversity of Alberta, Canada.