The Character Of Criticism

by Harpham; Geoffrey Galt

• ISBN13: 9780415971324
• ISBN10: 0415971322
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-07-12
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Why are some critical texts more compelling, memorable, or engaging than others? Can criticism be judged as a discourse of description, explanation, and analysis alone, or do our evaluations reflect other kinds of investments in it? In this book, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that the most powerful and effective criticism demands to be read as an expression of a distinctive sensibility, a way of being in the world; it demands, in other words, to be read as a discourse of character. Through a series of detailed and intimate intellectual portraits of leading critics--Elaine Scarry, Martha Nussbaum, Slavoj Zizek, and Edward Said--Harpham unfolds the complex and indirect ways in which human character is expressed in criticism. A final chapter on "Criticism in a State of Terror" assesses the contemporary situation. The Character of Criticism represents not just a snapshot of contemporary criticism but a fresh approach to criticism itself that clarifies the stakes involved for writers and readers ofcriticism alike. It does so not by making difficult thinking easy but by making it stranger--more idiosyncratic, exotic, and singular.

Table of Contents

1 The Character of Criticism	1	(26)
2 Criticism as Reverie: Elaine Scarry and the Dream of Pain	27	(26)
3 Criticism as Therapy: The Hunger of Martha Nussbaum	53	(28)
4 Criticism as Symptom: Slavoj Žižek and the End of Knowledge	81	(28)
5 Criticism as Obsession: Said and Conrad	109	(34)
Conclusion	143	(16)
Notes	159	(30)
Index	189