Anti-Mimesis from Plato to HitchcockCambridge University Press, 1994 M09 8 - 266 pages The material elements of writing have long been undervalued, and have been dismissed by recent historicising trends of criticism; but analysis of these elements - sound, signature, letters - can transform our understanding of literary texts. In this 1994 book Tom Cohen shows how, in an era of representational criticism and cultural studies, the role of close reading has been overlooked. Arguing that much recent criticism has been caught in potentially regressive models of representation, Professor Cohen undertakes to counter this by rethinking the 'materiality' of the text itself. Through a series of revealing new readings of the work of writers including Plato, Bakhtin, Poe, Whitman and Conrad, Professor Cohen exposes the limitations of new historicism and neo-pragmatism, and demonstrates how 'the materiality of language' operates to undo the representational models of meaning imposed by the literary canon. |
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aesthetic allegory American anamorphic appears arete Bakhtin Bartleby Bartleby's becomes called Conrad's critical dead death dialogue discourse double echoes emerges Emily exteriority face fact Faulkner figure film Fortunato Hannay Hitchcock hyperbaton hypogram Iago's ideology implies inscribed inscription interiority interpretation intertextual inversion Lacan lago Law Offices Leggatt letters linguistic logic machine marks materiality of language meaning Memory metaphor metonymic metron mimesis mimetic Moby-Dick Montresor narrative narrator neo-pragmatism Nietzschean opening Othello Pittacus Plato play Poe's poem political position post-structuralism pragmatism precedes present pretext problem proschema Protagoras question radical reader reading reflexive repetition representation represents reversal rhetorical Rose for Emily scene seems semantic semiosis semiotic sense Sephora sheer signature signifying Simonides sinthome social Socrates sort sound specular sublime suggests symbolic tale term text's textual Theaetetus thing Thirty-Nine Steps trope turn University Press voice Voloshinov's Whitman word writing Zizek