Synopses & Reviews
This book investigates a cluster of concepts that gather around the question of topography and its uses in criticism.
Synopsis
A Stanford University Press classic.
Synopsis
This book investigates a cluster of concepts that gather around the question of topography and its uses in criticism. The author considers questions such as: What is the function of landscape or cityscape descriptions in novels and poems as well as in philosophical or critical thinking? Though the texts examined are primarily by nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets (Tennyson, Hopkins, Stevens), novelists (Kleist, Dickens, Hardy, Faulkner), philosopher-theorists (Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida), Plato's Protagoras and the Book of Ruth are also included.
Synopsis
This book investigates the function of topographical names and descriptions in a variety of narratives, poems, and philosophical or theoretical texts, primarily from the 19th and 20th centuries, but including also Plato and the Bible. Topics include the initiating efficacy of speech acts, ethical responsibility, political or legislative power, the translation of theory from one topographical location to another, the way topographical delineations can function as parable or allegory, and the relation of personification to landscape.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 341-367) and index.
Table of Contents
Introduction: 1. Philosophy, literature, topography Heidegger and Hardy; 2. Face to face: faces, places and ethics in Plato; 3. Laying down the law in literature: Kleist; 4. Sam Wellers valentine: Dickens; 5. Temporal topographies: Tennyson's tears; 6. Naming, doing, placing: Hopkins; 7. Nietzsche in Basel: changing places in Thus Spoke Zarathustra; 8. Ideology and topography: Faulkner; 9. Slipping vaulting crossing: Heidegger; 10. The ethics of topography: Stevens; 11. Derrida's topographies; 12. Border crossings, translating theory Ruth; Notes; Index.