Philosophy of Literature

Applying a philosophical approach to literature is gathering momentum as an increasingly influential field of study. Philosophy of Literature features six newly–commissioned essays that address some of the issues at the vanguard of this thriving and important branch of aesthetics. A team of leading international literary and philosophical scholars present their insightful views on philosophy of literature′s central issues in a wide ranging series of readings. Topics addressed include the way literature can be a source of knowledge; the relation of form and content in literature; the importance of formal structure in narrative literature and absolute music; the scope and authority of literary criticism; J. L. Austin s notorious claim that poetry is a non–serious use of language; and the historical relationship between philosophy and literature, from Plato to the present day. This book represents a lively and thought provoking collection of some of the most intriguing contemporary issues concerning the philosophy of literature.

1. Literature, Knowledge, and the Aesthetic Attitude (M. W. Rowe, University of East Anglia).

2. The Elusiveness of Poetic Meaning (Peter Lamarque, University of York).

3. Fictional Form and Symphonic Structure: An Essay in Comparative Aesthetics (Peter Kivy, Rutgers University).

5. Criticism of Literature and Criticism of Culture (Stein Haugom Olsen, University of Bergen).

6. Incense and Insensibility: Austin on the non–seriousness of poetry (Maximilian de Gaynesford, University of Reading).

7. Philosophy and Literature: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Martin Warner, University of Warwick).

Index.

Severin Schroeder is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Reading. He is the author of three books on the philosophy of Wittgenstein: Das Privatsprachen–Argument, Schöningh (1998), Wittgenstein: The Way Out of the Fly–Bottle (2006), and Wittgenstein lesen (2009). He is also the editor of Wittgenstein and Contemporary Philosophy of Mind (2001).