Ethics, Literature, and Theory An Introductory Reader

by George, Stephen K.; Booth, Wayne C.; Barlow, Dudley; Card, Orson Scott; Cunningham, Anthony; Gardner, John; Gregory, Marshall; Han, John J.; Harrell, Jack; Hart, Richard E.; Heavilin, Barbara A.; Jennings, Marianne; Johnson, Charles; Malamud, Bernard; Mor

• ISBN13: 9780742532342
• ISBN10: 0742532348
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-07-07
• Publisher: Sheed & Ward

Summary

Do the rich descriptions and narrative shapings of literature provide a valuable resource for readers, writers, philosophers, and everyday people to imagine and confront the ultimate questions of life? Do the human activities of storytelling and complex m

Table of Contents

Foreword by Wayne C. Booth	xi
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	xv
Part I: Ethical Criticism and Literary Theory	1	(128)
1 Premises on Art and Morality	3	(8)
John Gardner
2 The Moral Connections of Literary Texts	11	(12)
Abraham B. Yehoshua
3 Why Ethical Criticism Can Never Be Simple	23	(14)
Wayne C. Booth
4 Ethical Criticism: What It Is and Why It Matters	37	(26)
Marshall Gregory
5 Against Ethical Criticism	63	(16)
Richard A. Posner
6 Who Is Responsible in Ethical Criticism?	79	(20)
Wayne C. Booth
7 The Absence of the Ethical: Literary Theory and Ethical Theory	99	(8)
Martha C. Nussbaum
8 Evaluative Discourse: A New Turn toward the Ethical	107	(8)
David Parker
9 The Moral and the Aesthetical: Literary Study and the Social Order	115	(14)
Stephen L. Tanner
Part II: Philosophy, Religion, and Literature	129	(82)
10 Reading for Life	131	(8)
Anthony Cunningham
11 The "Ancient Quarrel": Literature and Moral Philosophy	139	(14)
Martha C. Nussbaum
12 Stories and Morals	153	(12)
Nina Rosenstand
13 The Absence of Stories: Filling the Void in Ethics	165	(8)
Marianne Jennings
14 Literature and the Catholic Perspective	173	(8)
Mary R. Reichardt
15 Literature and Protestantism	181	(8)
John J. Han
16 Something to Measure By: Quaker Values in Literature	189	(8)
Barbara A. Heavilin
17 Literary Criticism and Religious Values	197	(14)
Bruce W. Young
Part III: Writers' Responsibilities	211	(52)
18 A Writer's Duty	213	(2)
John Updike
19 The Writer's Moral Sense	215	(4)
Flannery O'Connor
20 Imaginative Writing and the Jewish Experience	219	(6)
Bernard Malamud
21 The Problem of Evil in Fiction	225	(6)
Orson Scott Card
22 Poetry, Politics, and Morality	231	(8)
Jay Parini
23 Art and Ethics?	239	(2)
Joyce Carol Oates
24 What Violence in Literature Must Teach Us	241	(10)
Jack Harrell
25 Ethics and Literature	251	(12)
Charles Johnson
Part IV: Readers and Ethical Criticism	263	(76)
26 The Case against Huck Finn	265	(8)
John H. Wallace
27 Why We Still Need Huckleberry Finn	273	(6)
Dudley Barlow
28 Huckleberry Finn: An Amazing, Troubling Book	279	(10)
Toni Morrison
29 The Ethical Dimensions of Richard Wright's Native Son	289	(10)
Stephen K. George
30 Sethe's Choice: Beloved and the Ethics of Reading	299	(16)
James Phelan
31 Steinbeck, Johnson, and the Master/Slave Relationship	315	(14)
Richard E. Hart
32 Censorship and the Classroom	329	(10)
Georgia A. Newman
Notes	339	(30)
Glossary	369	(8)
Selected Bibliography	377	(2)
Permissions	379	(4)
Index	383	(14)
About the Contributors	397