The Triangle of Representation

by Prendergast, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9780231120906
• ISBN10: 0231120907
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-09-01
• Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr

Summary

Moving deftly among literary and visual arts, as well as the modern critical canon, Christopher Prendergast's book explores the meaning and value of representation as both a philosophical challenge (What does it mean to create an image that "stands for" something absent?) and a political issue (Who has the right to represent whom?).The Triangle of Representationraises a range of theoretical, historical, and aesthetic questions, and offers subtle readings of such cultural critics as Raymond Williams, Paul de Man, Edward Said, Walter Benjamin, and Hélène Cixous, in addition to penetrating investigations of visual artists like Gros, Ingres, and Matisse and significant insights into Proust and the onus of translating him. Above all, Prendergast's work is a striking display of how a firm grounding in theory is essential for the exploration of art and literature.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xv
The Triangle of Representation	1	(16)
Blurred Identities: Representing Modern Life	17	(14)
Foundations and Beginnings: Raymond Williams and the Grounds of Cultural Theory	31	(16)
Circulating Representations: New Historicism and the Poetics of Culture	47	(16)
Representing (Forgetting) the Past: Paul de Man, Fascism, and Deconstruction	63	(20)
Representing Other Cultures: Edward Said	83	(18)
Representation or Embodiment? Walter Benjamin and the Politics of Correspondances	101	(16)
God's Secret: Reflections on Realism	117	(16)
Visuality and Narrative: The Moment of History Painting	133	(14)
Literature, Painting, Metaphor: Matisse/Proust	147	(14)
English Proust	161	(16)
Notes	177	(14)
Index	191