Cross-Cultural Reckonings: A Triptych of Russian, American and Canadian Texts - Brossura

Gelfant, Blanche

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0521106753 ISBN 13: 9780521106757

Casa editrice: Cambridge University Press, 2009

Riassunto

Blanche H. Gelfant's book Cross-Cultural Reckonings both demonstrates and questions the applicability of postmodern cultural and literary theories to realistic texts - to fiction and autobiographies valued for their truth. Drawing together an unusual combination of Russian, American and Canadian writers, the various essays of this book provide original perspectives upon the puzzling issues of national identity, of historical change and continuity, of gender and the integrity of literary genres, the boundaries between text and context and the underlying if overlooked conflicts between the post-modern critic's scepticism and a writer's belief in the transcendence of art and truth. These writers are discussed singly and in comparative essays, each of which is discrete and self-contained, while all interconnect and reflect upon each other as exemplary demonstrations of cross-cultural literary criticism and the deferred final judgement that results from a weighing and reweighing of books.

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Recensione

"...Gelfant has directed us to see better certain real complexities that face us when we think the truth of a culture is somewhere in the text." Slavic and East European Journal

"...Gelfant's analysis is often exemplary--rich, subtle, and sensitive to the play of ambiguities and the hidden life of texts." American Literature

"Blanche H. Gelfant is a critic, like Susan Sontag or Annie Dillard, who writes about literature in a way that is exciting in itself, whether or not the reader knows or cares about the books she is discussing. She is a consumate stylist, able to fix in a descriptive phrase or two something about a book that says more than any lengthy analysis could achieve." Canadian Review of American Studies

"Expert teacher that she is, Gelfant provokes her readers to go beyond her interpretations and even to challenege and extend them....From her wanderings, reckonings, and alert harkening to voices of multiplicity of cultures, classes, languages, and artistic temperaments, Gelfant renders her account of the rich variety of voices that strike the same profoundly resonant chords: aching desires for love, warmth, and security; torturous yearnings for intellectual stimulation and the aesthetic pleasures of Nature and art; and the unrelenting hope of discovering compassion and charity within global cultures that seem to generate only a cold and barren bottom-line mentality. In this bold and seminal work, she lets us hear how the articulations of many seemingly disparate speakers may be clarified and given new meaning through the voice of a powerful scholar-critic." Emory Elliot, Novel

Descrizione del libro

Blanche H. Gelfant's book Cross-Cultural Reckonings both demonstrates and questions the applicability of postmodern cultural and literary theories to realistic texts - to fiction and autobiographies valued for their truth.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Cambridge University Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0521106753
• ISBN 13: 9780521106757
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 208