Literature: Why It Matters

Literature: Why It Matters
ISBN-10
150953234X
ISBN-13
9781509532346
Series
Literature
Category
Literary Criticism
Pages
160
Language
English
Published
2019-07-23
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons
Author
Robert Eaglestone

Description

‘Facts alone are wanted in life,’ exclaims Mr Gradgrind at the beginning of Dickens’ Hard Times. Literature is not about facts alone, and – despite two and a half thousand years of arguments – no one can agree on what it is, or how to study it. But, argues Robert Eaglestone, it is precisely the open-ended nature of literature that makes it such a rewarding and useful subject. Eaglestone shows that studying literature can change who you are, turning you from a ‘reader’ into a ‘critic’: someone attuned to the ways we make meaning in our world. Literature is a living conversation which provides endless opportunities to rethink and reinterpret our societies and ourselves. With examples ranging from Sappho to Skyrim, this book shows how literature offers freer and deeper ways of thinking and being.

Other editions

Similar books

  • The Politics Book
    By DK

    The Politics Book charts the development of long-running themes, such as attitudes to democracy and violence, developed by thinkers from Confucius in ancient China to Mahatma Gandhi in 20th-century India.

  • "What is Literature?" and Other Essays
    By Jean-Paul Sartre

    Unlike Sartre , Adorno is less concerned with generating specific disclosure or implementing change than with disrupting fundamental attitudes . His own aesthetic theory sees the representation ( " gesture toward reality " ) achieved by ...

  • How Literature Works: 50 Key Concepts
    By John Sutherland

    How Literature Works is an indispensable book for any reader seeking a greater appreciation of their favorite novel, poem, or play.

  • Literary Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Literature
    By Alex Palmer

    Or was that Oprah? This quirky work is filled with entertaining literary trivia fora unique perspective on writers’ lives and inspirations, from thedrinks they imbibed to the books they penned.

  • The Routledge Introduction to American War Literature
    By Jennifer Haytock

    In her collection A Street in Bronzeville (1945), the poet Gwendolyn Brooks includes a sonnet sequence titled “Gay Chaps at the Bar,” dedicated as a “souvenir for Staff Sergeant Raymond Brooks and every other soldier.

  • Prizing Children’s Literature: The Cultural Politics of Children’s Book Awards
    By Kenneth B. Kidd, Joseph T. Thomas Jr.

    This volume will interest scholars in literary and cultural studies, social history, book history, sociology, education, library and information science, and anyone concerned with children's literature.

  • Text Book: Writing Through Literature
    By Gregory L. Ulmer, Robert Scholes, Nancy R. Comley

    Designed for literature-based writing courses, Text Book introduces students to the idea that literary texts and ordinary spoken and written language share many of the same features.

  • The Child in British Literature: Literary Constructions of Childhood, Medieval to Contemporary
    By A. Gavin

    The first volume to consider childhood over eight centuries of British writing, this book traces the literary child from medieval to contemporary texts.

  • A Companion to American Literature
    By Michael Soto, Susan Belasco, Linck Johnson

    Race and Culture in New Orleans Stories. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Explores issues of ethnicity and culture in the lives of immigrants in Louisiana in the nineteenth century, with special emphasis on people of mixed race.

  • The Cambridge Companion to the Body in Literature
    By David Hillman, Ulrika Maude

    This Companion offers the first systematic analysis of the body in literature, from the Middle Ages to the present day.