Geoffrey H. Hartman

For most people literary criticism is a mystery that often seems inaccessible, written for an in-group. Even worse, a Battle of the Books has broken out between neoconservatives and neoradicals--all the more reason to steer clear of the fray. Geoffrey Hartman argues that ignoring the culture wars would be unwise, for what is at stake is the nature of the arts we prize and our obligation to remain civil and avoid the apocalyptic tone of most political prophecy. Hartman's book is both a survey of the history of modern literary criticism and a strategic intervention. First he presents an account of the culture of criticism in the last one hundred years. He then widens the focus to provide a picture of the critical essay from 1700 to the present in order to show that a major change in style took place after 1950. Two chapters focus on F. R. Leavis and Paul de Man, central--and controversial--figures in academic criticism. Hartman attends to major developments on the continent and in Anglo-American circles that have disrupted the calm of what he calls the friendship or conversational style. On the one hand, critics and thinkers have pursued strange gods in order to enrich and sharpen their critical style. This change Hartman welcomes. On the other hand, along with a renewed interest in politics and historical speculation, a didactic and moralistic tone has again entered the scene. Hartman rejects this new moralism. The author is an eloquent defender of reading the text of criticism as carefully as the text of literature. He argues for a broader conception of critical style, one that would support the open and conversational voice of the public critic as well as the inventive and innovative practice of the technical critic. Hartman sets before us an ideal of literary criticism that can acknowledge theory yet does not shrink from a sustained, text-centered response. Minor Prophecies is a major book by one of our finest critics.

The Literary Essay in the Culture Wars

Minor Prophecies

Examines the moral and political controversy surrounding President Reagan's intention to visit a cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, in 1985 during a visit commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the end of World War II and the opening of the concentration camps. The discovery that the cemetery also contained a small group of graves of SS officers prompted protests by Jews and American veterans.

Bitburg in Moral and Political Perspective

The Unremarkable Wordsworth

Distinguished critic and scholar Geoffrey Hartman explores the usefulness of Derrida's style of close reading for English and American scholarship and establishes its relevance to the division that has arisen between European and Anglo-American critical approaches. In addition, he discusses Derrida's exegesis in relation to theological commentary.

Literature, Derrida, Philosophy

Saving the Text

Originally published in 1980, this now classic work of literary theory explores the wilderness of positions that grew out of the collision between Anglo-American practical criticism and Continental philosophic criticism. This second edition includes a new preface by the author as well as a foreword by Hayden White. ?A key text for understanding ?the fate of reading' in the Anglophone world over the last fifty years.”?Hayden White, from the Foreword ?Criticism in the Wilderness may be the best, most brilliant, most broadly useful book yet written by an American about the sudden swerve from the safety of established decorum toward bravely theoretical, mainly European forms of literary criticism.”?Terrence Des Pres, Nation ?A polemical survey that reaffirms the value of the Continental tradition of philosophical literary criticism.”?Notable Books of the Year, New York Times Book Review

The Study of Literature Today

Criticism in the Wilderness

Patricia Parker

The theoretical ferment which has affected literary studies over the last decade has called into question traditional ways of thinking about, classifying and interpreting texts. Shakespeare has been not just the focus of a variety of divergent critical movements within recent years, but also increasingly the locus of emerging debates within, and with, theory itself. This collection of essays, written by distinguished and powerful critics in the fields of literary theory and Shakespeare studies, is intended both for those interested in Shakespeare and for those interested more generally in the emerging debates within contemporary criticism and theory.

Shakespeare and the Question of Theory

Kevin Hart

Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature Kevin Hart

Professor Geoffrey H Hartman

"Kevin Hart and Geoffrey H. Hartman bring together essays by prominent scholars from a range of disciplines to focus on Blanchot's diverse concerns: literature, art, community, politics, ethics, spirituality, and the Holocaust."--Jacket.

Perspectives on Maurice Blanchot

The Power of Contestation

Poetry, Feeling, and Modern Cultural Morality

The Sympathy Paradox

One of our most incisive critics asks where the assault against the canons of Western culture has led us. Hartman calls for the restoration of literature to its place as the focus of thinking about culture and for the renewal of aesthetic education to help ensure the balance between art, culture, and politics.

Geoffrey H. Hartman

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