A Biocultural Approach to Literary Theory and Interpretation

Nancy Easterlin

ISBN 10: 1421404729 / ISBN 13: 9781421404721

Editore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012

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nach der Bestellung gedruckt Neuware - Printed after ordering - Combining cognitive and evolutionary research with traditional humanist methods, Nancy Easterlin demonstrates how a biocultural perspective in theory and criticism opens up new possibilities for literary interpretation.Easterlin maintains that the practice of literary interpretation is still of central intellectual and social value. Taking an open yet judicious approach, she argues, however, that literary interpretation stands to gain dramatically from a fair-minded and creative application of cognitive and evolutionary research. This work does just that, expounding a biocultural method that charts a middle course between overly reductive approaches to literature and traditionalists who see the sciences as a threat to the humanities.Easterlin develops her biocultural method by comparing it to four major subfields within literary studies: new historicism, ecocriticism, cognitive approaches, and evolutionary approaches. After a thorough review of each subfield, she reconsiders them in light of relevant research in cognitive and evolutionary psychology and provides a textual analysis of literary works from the romantic era to the present, including William Wordsworth's 'Simon Lee' and the Lucy poems, Mary Robinson's 'Old Barnard,' Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'Dejection: An Ode,' D. H. Lawrence's The Fox, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, and Raymond Carver's 'I Could See the Smallest Things.'A Biocultural Approach to Literary Theory and Interpretation offers a fresh and reasoned approach to literary studies that at once preserves the central importance that interpretation plays in the humanities and embraces the exciting developments of the cognitive sciences.

Codice articolo 9781421404721

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: A Biocultural Approach to Literary Theory and Interpretation
• Editore: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2012
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1421404729
• ISBN 13: 9781421404721
• Rilegatura: Buch
• Condizione: Neu
• Dimensioni: 235 L x 157 A x 24 P (millimetri) 235 millimetri di larghezza per 157 millimetri di altezza per 24 millimetri di profondità
• Peso: 700 grammi

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Combining cognitive and evolutionary research with traditional humanist methods, Nancy Easterlin demonstrates how a biocultural perspective in theory and criticism opens up new possibilities for literary interpretation.

Easterlin maintains that the practice of literary interpretation is still of central intellectual and social value. Taking an open yet judicious approach, she argues, however, that literary interpretation stands to gain dramatically from a fair-minded and creative application of cognitive and evolutionary research. This work does just that, expounding a biocultural method that charts a middle course between overly reductive approaches to literature and traditionalists who see the sciences as a threat to the humanities.

Easterlin develops her biocultural method by comparing it to four major subfields within literary studies: new historicism, ecocriticism, cognitive approaches, and evolutionary approaches. After a thorough review of each subfield, she reconsiders them in light of relevant research in cognitive and evolutionary psychology and provides a textual analysis of literary works from the romantic era to the present, including William Wordsworth’s "Simon Lee" and the Lucy poems, Mary Robinson’s "Old Barnard," Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s "Dejection: An Ode," D. H. Lawrence’s The Fox, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, and Raymond Carver’s "I Could See the Smallest Things."

A Biocultural Approach to Literary Theory and Interpretation offers a fresh and reasoned approach to literary studies that at once preserves the central importance that interpretation plays in the humanities and embraces the exciting developments of the cognitive sciences.

Informazioni sull?autore

Nancy Easterlin is a University Research Professor and director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of New Orleans and author of Wordsworth and the Question of “Romantic Religion.”