Reading Literature After Deconstruction

Book excerpt: This book is, above all, a highly informed guide to students and readers of literature, for whom the world of literary study has become a maze of theoretical hurdles. The intention is to equip readers with the necessary skills to restore vitality to the act of reading literary texts, crucially, in the moment of engagement with text. Beyond this central aim lies the attendant wish to restore the study of literature to the centre of civil life within modern society. This book makes an enormous and timely contribution to the study of literature in the context of the major debates surrounding literary studies in recent decades without reducing the primary literary texts to footnotes during the act of reading. Chapters include an appraisal of intention, and translation, interpreting poetry, and the relation between literature and philosophy, always framed against a rich tapestry of literary texts drawn from many cultures and periods. Reading Literature After Deconstruction will be an extremely valuable resource for students and scholars of literature, literary theory, and theories of reading.