An examination of Humanist Hermeneutics in Literary Studies- the practice of close reading- but from a distance presents a room for relation between Literary Studies and other disciplines. Such practices lead to possibilities for renewed interdisciplinary exchange. Viewed within the framework of present day social constructionist theory or simply post- theory, the current essay Close but not Deep: Literary Ethics and the Descriptive Turn show how both Critical Hermeneutics and Descriptive Sociology disavow Traditional Humanist categories. This act reduces the singularity, canonization and the isolation of the text.
Although, it is probably true that the key Humanist Values always remain active and serviceable in Literary Studies. A belief in the potential Aesthetics and Ethical force of Literature is apparent in the work of critics like Cleanth Brooks, Lionel Trilling and others. It is not uncommon to find the ethical value inside the text and into the activity of the critic. The richness of human experiences within a text can be understood through philosophical hermeneutics on one hand and its communicative situation on the other. The considerate axis is on the exhaustive centrality of ethical demands which remains paramount to the practices of literary interpretation today. The specter of Descriptive Turn is perennial to get an access to both otherness and a message that text stipulates in an inverse form (looking at, from the other side of the situation).
“… Interpretive practices borrowed from Marxism and Psychoanalysis, Structuralism and Post structuralism and Semiotics and Deconstruction has displaced the individual and consciousness from the centre of inquiry, shifting attention to the culture of language, desire or...
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...ght. Try it you’ve see everything changes.”
Works Cited
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Love, Heather. “Close But Not Deep: Literary Ethics and the Descriptive Turn.” New Literary History, 41, 2 (2010): 371-391. Print.
Works Cited
Such charges have received insufficient response from deconstruction's top theorists who, though they define and redefine the basic tenets of their approach, fail to justify such an approach in the world. They have explained their purpose, but not their motivation. With this desperate need in mind, then, embarking on any new piece of deconstruction poses a twofold demand: to not only seek to unfold new facets of a text (or texts) through a deconstructive lens, but to aim that lens outside of literature and show its implications in society, away from any ivory tower.
The novel is nurtured with a very soft but sophisticated diction. The essay itself portrays the author’s style of sarcasm and explains his points in a very clear manner. In addition, the author has used vocabulary that is very easy to understand and manages to relate the readers with his simplistic words. The author is able to convey a strong and provoc...
The central figures in these three works are all undoubtedly flawed, each one in a very different way. They may have responded to their positions in life, or the circumstances in which they find themselves may have brought out traits that already existed. Whichever applies to each individual, or the peculiar combination of the two that is specific to them, it effects the outcome of their lives. Their reaction to these defects, and the control or lack of it that they apply to these qualities, is also central to the narrative that drives these texts. The exploration of the characters of these men and their particular idiosyncrasies is the thread that runs throughout all of the works.
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Through this sympathetic faculty, a writer is able to give flesh, authenticity and a genuine perspective to the imagined. It is only in this manner that the goal of creating living beings may be realized. Anything short of this becomes an exercise in image and in Kundera’s words, produces an immoral novel (3). The antithesis of liv... ...
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In the three chosen works of literature, Ordinary people by Judith Guest, Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Antigone by Sophocles, alienation, initiation, journey, suffering and reconciliation are among the themes covered by the these great works of literature. The writers through the various characters in the scripts have clearly brought out the five themes as the main themes. These works of literature act as a reflection of what was happening in the society then. In terms of literature not much has changed and would still expect the same to be happening in the society today. As acknowledged, literature indeed reflects the society, its ill values and good values. In mirroring of the ills of the society, the view is to make the society realize its mistakes and make amends. The good values are set out for others to emulate. As an imitation of human actions, literature presents an image of what people do, think and do in the society.
The “hermeneutic activity –the practice of close reading” (373) is what Love evaluates next. The practice of close reading became the framework of hermeneutics in the early 20th century and has been the foundation of text evaluation since then, no matter what different literary approaches and cultural changes were present, since “the richness of texts continues to serve as a carrier for an allegedly superannuated humanism”(373). Her own assertion regarding the interpretation of texts can be interpreted in sev...
Guerin, Wilford L. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1979.
Postmodernism assumes an ontology of fragmented being. Where modernism asserts the primacy of the subject in revealing universal truth, postmodernism challenges the authority of the subject and, thus, universal truth based on it. Modernism and postmodernism, however, draw upon distinctly different epistemological modes: critical and dogmatic.
One of the ways Social Network Theory has been used is to examine how companies interact with each other. By understanding what links members of the companies together, Social Network theory has served as a way to gather information about the relationships within their company to help answer questions through the roles of the relationships within the company. For my question of study I looked at the question of: Are actors and their actions viewed as independent of interdependent within an organization?
Literary criticism is used as a guideline to help analyze, deconstruct, interpret, or even evaluate literary works. Each type of criticism offers its own methods that help the reader to delve deeper into the text, revealing all of its innermost features. New Criticism portrays how a work is unified, Reader-Response Criticism establishes how the reader reacts to a work, Deconstructive Criticism demonstrates how a work falls apart, Historical Criticism illustrates how the history of the author and the author’s time period influence a text, and last of all, Psychological Criticism expresses how unconscious motivations drive the author in the creation of their work as well as how the reader’s motivations influence their own interpretation of the text (Lynn 139, 191). This creates a deep level of understanding of literature that simply cannot be gained through surface level reading. If not one criticism is beneficial to the reader, then taking all criticisms or a mixture of specific criticisms into consideration might be the best way to approach literary