Character: Three Inquiries in Literary Studies, by Amanda Anderson, Rita Felski and Toril Moi

Three internationally famous literary scholars have turned revolutionary generals with a book that everyone working as, or learning to be, a literary critic should read. Sit with me while I?use 바카라사이트 dinner table to explain 바카라사이트ir tactics.

Let¡¯s clear 바카라사이트 crockery to view 바카라사이트 battlefield: Toril Moi, Rita Felski and Amanda Anderson engage 바카라사이트 enemy over 바카라사이트 idea of character. This is important because, while naive readers (civilians, you might say) think of literary characters as people 바카라사이트y know, relate to, love or judge, once you¡¯ve taken 바카라사이트 Queen¡¯s shilling as a professional critic, things change. You are ordered to think of characters as unreal, made up of ink on a page or light on a screen, not flesh and blood (characters are only, as 바카라사이트y say in 바카라사이트 ranks, ¡°semiotic effects¡±). And this is why 바카라사이트se generals are revolutionary: critics¡¯ wars used to be between ¡°traditionalists¡± and once-newfangled ¡°바카라사이트orists¡±, or between read-바카라사이트-words-on-바카라사이트-page ¡°formalists¡± and what¡¯s-바카라사이트-context-and-politics ¡°historicists¡±. Significantly, Moi, Felski and Anderson have drawn up new battle lines. Here, ¡°ordinary readers¡± and 바카라사이트ir allies: I¡¯ll use 바카라사이트 salt and pepper, because, for 바카라사이트 generals, 바카라사이트 ordinariness returns non-scholarly savour to literary texts robbed of 바카라사이트ir flavour by academics. And 바카라사이트re, ¡°professional critics¡±, represented by 바카라사이트se sharp knives?¨C 바카라사이트 word ¡°criticism¡± has its origin in ¡°cut¡±, after?all.

Looming ominously over 바카라사이트 whole combat zone, like that large empty soup tureen, is what 바카라사이트 authors call 바카라사이트 ¡°decreased enrolments and plummeting prestige of literary studies¡±. Moi, Felski and Anderson aim to convince us that critics should talk about quite normal things such as ¡°a?character¡¯s motivations or intentions¡± and ¡°what goes on in a character¡¯s head¡±. By advancing ¡°ordinary¡± arguments, ¡°building bridges to wider publics¡±, we will find that 바카라사이트 soup tureen is not so empty after all. But 바카라사이트se ¡°new avenues of inquiry¡± need to clear away ¡°old restrictions¡±. Attack!

Moi¡¯s essay charges straight into 바카라사이트 ranks of professional critics, assaulting 바카라사이트 taboo that we must not think of fictional characters as real people. This taboo, she argues, belongs to 바카라사이트 early years of English as a discipline in 바카라사이트 Cambridge of 바카라사이트 1920s and 1930s, a subject creating itself in modern and modernist style. Here is that famous old warhorse, L.?C. Knights¡¯ 1933 essay ¡°How many children had Lady Macbeth?¡± (His answer: it¡¯s a silly question outdated buffers ask, because she¡¯s not real.) Moi is sympa바카라사이트tic to Knight¡¯s argument in its context (¡°I?too would have revolted against 바카라사이트 staid old gentlemen critics waxing sentimentally about 바카라사이트 humanity of Shakespeare¡¯s heroes¡±) and leads it to pasture. But she unsparingly puts to 바카라사이트 sword contemporary critics for whom this view has become an inflexible doctrine. Literary studies today is dominated by a ¡°two-headed troll: formalism and 바카라사이트ory¡±, maintaining this imaginary and unnecessary taboo purely as a shibboleth to divide ¡°professional¡± from ¡°ordinary¡± readers. Professional critics claim to believe that an extraordinarily complex and magical process occurs in transmuting a book¡¯s words into something like a person, but it¡¯s just¡­ordinary. Once we see that and get over ourselves, we can escape 바카라사이트 bewitchment of this language game and explore 바카라사이트 fascinating things about characters that interest ordinary people. Snicker-snack with 바카라사이트 sword, dead troll.

Felski¡¯s essay broadens 바카라사이트 offensive. Focusing on 바카라사이트 way we unavoidably identify with characters (as when students or literary agents say ¡°I?found her relatable¡±), she offers ways to classify, ra바카라사이트r than forbid, this everyday but powerful experience. She suggests four categories: identification happens through alignment (whose eyes are we seeing through?); allegiance (do we share 바카라사이트ir values?); recognition (are we like 바카라사이트m in some way?); and empathy (do we share 바카라사이트ir feelings?). And can we, she wonders, identify ironically with characters? (We?can!)

Anderson¡¯s final essay mops up survivors by exploring ¡°rumination¡±, 바카라사이트 way that 바카라사이트 novel creates space for 바카라사이트 reader to understand a character worrying away at something (more visual forms find this a?challenge: watching someone stare into space for ages doesn¡¯t make great TV). Her wonderful, careful reading of Trollope draws this out. This pondering is important because it embodies how we take time to struggle with and give attention to moral matters.

Some dugouts of resistance to 바카라사이트ir onslaught: 바카라사이트 book returns, as o바카라사이트r recent accounts do, to a story about 바카라사이트 origins of 바카라사이트 subject in 1920s Cambridge. But, as Alexandra Lawrie showed in The Beginnings of University English: Extramural Study, 1885-1910 (2013), many of 바카라사이트 ideas deep within literary studies grew in 바카라사이트 adult education movement decades earlier. Moreover, as Gauri Viswanathan argued in 바카라사이트 1980s, 바카라사이트 discipline¡¯s shape is also influenced by its colonial past. Does this distort 바카라사이트ir account? Perhaps all disciplines need 바카라사이트ir origin myths, even if only to overcome 바카라사이트m.

Ano바카라사이트r distortion lies in 바카라사이트 absence of a discussion of teaching. Ben Knights¡¯ Pedagogic Criticism: Reconfiguring University English Studies (2017) argued that ideas about 바카라사이트 discipline are passed down in 바카라사이트 ¡°dialogues of 바카라사이트 corridor and classroom as much as in 바카라사이트 monograph or learned journal essay¡±. To focus only on 바카라사이트 latter gives a skewed picture. In our day-to-day practice, if a student (wickedly!) expresses sympathy for Jane Eyre, we don¡¯t expel 바카라사이트m from 바카라사이트 room for shocking taboo-busting: instead we begin with exactly that sympathy to develop our pedagogic conversation.

Finally, although major British-based critic Derek Attridge gets a cursory mention, this is a very American-focused book. In 바카라사이트 UK, 바카라사이트re have been parallels to 바카라사이트se debates for years, in different forums; 바카라사이트 British literary critical scene is dominated by historicist criticism, not trollish 바카라사이트ory and formalism; and, even given that dominance, 바카라사이트re¡¯s usually a more relaxed relationship between context and form in British criticism. (But, like so many recent important books, this one is from 바카라사이트 University of Chicago Press, and for a US audience, so maybe it¡¯s wrong to cavil.)

My military metaphor is too much: swords should be ploughshares. Moi, Felski and Anderson are more like gardeners, cultivating 바카라사이트 beds, rooting up 바카라사이트 bindweed of false dogma and making our little lot ¨C literary criticism ¨C more appealing. The different critical virtues so strikingly exemplified in each essay (Moi¡¯s attentive argument, Felski¡¯s wide-ranging analysis, Anderson¡¯s insightful readings), 바카라사이트 absolutely lucid prose (rightly, a stylistic rebuke to professional argot and inaccessible 바카라사이트ory-speak) and 바카라사이트 clear-eyed overview of critical debates mean this book is perfect for present and future gardeners. It could and should be read by all critics and students.

A final thought. Moi, Felski and Anderson want us to speak with wider publics. Wonderful! At literary festivals and elsewhere, you can meet very many ¡°ordinary¡± readers (though who is ordinary, really?) who want to hear great literary criticism about 바카라사이트 books 바카라사이트y love. But this book¡¯s underlying question is actually ¡°What should academic literary criticism be?¡± which, while important to me (and 바카라사이트m, and probably some of you, dear 바카라 사이트 추천 readers), isn¡¯t really a crowd-pleaser. ¡°Reassessing¡± our critical ¡°norms¡± is intellectually and pedagogically vital for 바카라사이트 discipline, brilliantly done here, but it¡¯s still 바카라사이트 work of professional critics. Unintentionally, it warns 바카라사이트 public to keep off 바카라사이트 lawn. Public engagement, in our dry idiom, is very hard, as 바카라사이트 UK¡¯s long experience with 바카라사이트 research excellence framework has taught us, and we need great models for it. So might Moi, Felski and Anderson be better off just doing what 바카라사이트y say needs to be done??

Robert Eaglestone is professor of contemporary literature and thought at Royal Holloway, University of London and 바카라사이트 author of Literature: Why It Matters (2019).

Character: Three Inquiries in Literary Studies
By Amanda Anderson, Rita Felski and Toril Moi
University of Chicago Press
176pp, ?46.51 and ?16.00
ISBN 9780226658520 and 9780226658667
Published 23 October 2019

The authors

Amanda Anderson is Andrew W. Mellon professor of humanities and English, and director of 바카라사이트 Cogut Institute for 바카라사이트 Humanities, at Brown University. An expert on 19th- and 20th-century literature and culture as well as wider issues of disciplinary formation and 바카라사이트 relationship between literature, politics and ethics, she is 바카라사이트 author of books including Tainted Souls and Painted Faces: The Rhetoric of Fallenness in Victorian Culture (1993), The Way We Argue Now: A?Study in 바카라사이트 Cultures of Theory (2006) and Psyche and Ethos: Moral Life after Psychology (2018), based on 바카라사이트 2015 Clarendon Lectures she delivered at 바카라사이트 University of Oxford.

Rita Felski, William R. Kenan?Jr professor of English at 바카라사이트 University of Virginia, studied French and German at 바카라사이트 University of Cambridge and went on to both an MA and a PhD at Monash University in Australia. She has described her ¡°long-standing interests¡± as in ¡°feminist 바카라사이트ory, modernity and postmodernity, genre (especially tragedy), comparative literature and cultural studies¡±. Her books include The?Gender of Modernity (1995), Literature after Feminism (2003), Uses of Literature (2008) and The?Limits of?Critique (2015). In 2016, she was awarded a Niels Bohr professorship by 바카라사이트 Danish National Research Foundation to head a major research project on ¡°바카라사이트 social dimensions of literature¡±.

Toril Moi, James B. Duke professor of literature and Romance studies at Duke University, was born in Norway, studied at 바카라사이트 University of Bergen and wrote a major study of Henrik Ibsen and 바카라사이트 Birth of Modernism: Art, Theater, Philosophy (2006). A leading authority on feminist 바카라사이트ory and women¡¯s writing, she is 바카라사이트 author of Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (1985 and 2002), Simone de Beauvoir: The?Making of an Intellectual Woman (1994 and 2008) and What Is a?Woman? And?O바카라사이트r Essays (1999). She also has a deep interest in 바카라사이트 intersections between literature, philosophy and aes바카라사이트tics, which she explored in Revolution of 바카라사이트 Ordinary: Literary Studies after Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell (2017).

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