In this Book
- Speculative Formalism: Literature, Theory, and the Critical Present
- Book
- 2017
- Published by: Northwestern University Press
- Series: Diaeresis
summary
Speculative Formalism engages decisively in recent debates in the literary humanities around form and formalism, making the case for a new, nonmimetic and antihistoricist theory of literary reference. Where formalism has often been accused of sealing texts within themselves, Eyers demonstrates instead how a renewed, speculative formalism can illuminate the particular ways in which literature actively opens onto history, politics, and nature, in a connective movement that puts formal impasses to creative use.
Through a combination of philosophical reflection and close rhetorical readings, Eyers explores the possibilities and limits of deconstructive approaches to the literary, the impact of the “digital humanities” on theory, and the prospects for a formalist approach to “world literature.” The book includes sustained close readings of Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Yeats, and Wallace Stevens, as well as Alain Badiou, Paul de Man, and Fredric Jameson.
Through a combination of philosophical reflection and close rhetorical readings, Eyers explores the possibilities and limits of deconstructive approaches to the literary, the impact of the “digital humanities” on theory, and the prospects for a formalist approach to “world literature.” The book includes sustained close readings of Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Yeats, and Wallace Stevens, as well as Alain Badiou, Paul de Man, and Fredric Jameson.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-x
- Introduction
- pp. 1-32
- 4. Paul de Man’s Poetic Materialism
- pp. 124-149
- Conclusion
- pp. 183-200
- Bibliography
- pp. 227-240
Additional Information
ISBN
9780810134324
Related ISBN(s)
9780810134300, 9780810134317
MARC Record
OCLC
970384678
Pages
255
Launched on MUSE
2017-01-28
Language
English
Open Access
No
Copyright
2017