Barthes, Roland (1915–80)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Risser
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
General Theory ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Close Association ◽  
Roland Barthes ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Dynamic Activity ◽  
Language And Culture

In the field of contemporary literary studies, the French essayist and cultural critic Roland Barthes cannot be easily classified. His early work on language and culture was strongly influenced by the intellectual currents of existentialism and Marxism that were dominant in French intellectual life in the mid-twentieth century. Gradually his work turned more to semiology (a general theory of signs), which had a close association with the structuralist tradition in literary criticism. In his later work, Barthes wrote more as a post-structuralist than as a structuralist in an attempt to define the nature and authority of a text. Throughout his writings Barthes rejected the ‘naturalist’ view of language, which takes the sign as a representation of reality. He maintained that language is a dynamic activity that dramatically affects literary and cultural practices.

Introduction: In Defence of Paraphrase

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Patrick Fessenbecker
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Reading Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Art For Art's Sake ◽  
Aesthetic Structure

How did “reading for the message,” a mark of shame among literary critics, yet in many ways an ordinary reading practice, become so marginalized? The origins of this methodological commitment ultimately are intertwined with the birth of literary studies itself . The influential aestheticist notion of “art for art’s sake” has several implications crucial for understanding the intellectual history of literary criticism in the twentieth century: most important was the belief that to “extract” an idea from a text was to dismiss its aesthetic structure. This impulse culminated in the New Critical contention that to paraphrase a text was a “heresy.” Yet this dominant tradition has always co-existed with practical interpretation that was much less formalist in emphasis. A return to the world of American literary criticism in 1947, when Cleanth Brooks’s The Well-Wrought Urn was published, shows this clearly: many now-forgotten critics were already practicing a form of criticism that emphasized literary content, and often overly rejecting Brooks’s insistence that reading for the content or meaning of a poem betrayed its aesthetic nature.

R/M, 1953

Paragraph ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 67-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christophe Bident
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Roland Barthes ◽  
Single Question

French literary criticism in the twentieth century is marked by two names: those of Roland Barthes andMaurice Blanchot. Each of them cut an individual path through the dense and variegated cultural terrain of their era, and few authors escaped their attention. Their paths generally ran in parallel, and they rarely opposed each other, yet their dialogue was never easy, and the impression remains that between them, there was never really a meeting of minds. Taking 1953 as a crucial year, this article will attempt to situate both the convergences and the divergences which mark their respective careers, by considering them in relation to a single question: that of the neuter.

Renewing the coal mining past

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonie Cornips ◽  
Louis van den Hengel
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Coal Mining ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Mining Industry ◽  
Mining Area ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Cultural Renewal ◽  
And Gender

Abstract This article examines how inhabitants of Heerlen, a town in the province of Limburg in the southeast of the Netherlands, renew the cultural memory of coal mining in the area through parodic linguistic and cultural practices linked to the (re)articulation of collective local and social identities. Heerlen became a center for the coal mining industry in the Netherlands in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The closure of the mines between 1965 and 1974 had devastating consequences for the economic, social, and cultural developments of the area. Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in the region’s mining past, creating new momentum for Heerlen in its transition from a struggling former mining area to a city focusing on long-term socio-economic development and cultural innovation. In this context, new practices of cultural memory are emerging through local performances of language and culture that operate to reconstruct Heerlen’s coal mining past through parodic repetition. By discussing two case studies exemplifying the creative ways in which dominant accounts of the mining past are being rearticulated, we explain how the use of parody may serve to undermine the interacting social norms, identities, and hierarchies that have come to shape cultural memories of mining in communities historically defined by working-class and male-dominated labor. The article integrates linguistic and sociolinguistic research, studies of regional history, and theories of parody rooted in contemporary literary criticism and gender studies, to demonstrate the importance of place-bound practices of languageculture as a compelling force of linguistic and socio-cultural renewal.

scholarly journals Shanghai School (Haipai): Content of the Concept

2020 ◽  
pp. 284-297
Author(s):  
I. A. Moshchenko
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Basic Concept ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Shanghai School ◽  
First Time

The article is devoted to the analysis of the content of the literary concept of haipai (Shanghai school). It is pointed out that the term is actively used in modern literary studies in the Chinese language and is a basic concept for the classification of Chinese writers of the twentieth century. The question is raised about the legality of using this term for the analysis of works of art. It is noted that the literary polemic of 1933—1934 “The dispute about the Shanghai and Beijing schools” helps to clarify the meaning of the concept of “haipai”. As a result of the analysis of publications of this period, it is concluded that the term Shanghai school in modern literary practice has a different meaning than what the participants in the discussion put into it. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time in Russian the literary polemics of 1933—1934 are described in detail using primary sources. As a result of the study, it was concluded that in terms of its content, the term haipai is close to such a descriptive concept in European literary criticism as “decadence”. It sets a certain evaluative paradigm and evokes certain visual and sensory images, but it should be used with caution as a means of literary analysis.

Literaire levenslessen

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-349
Author(s):  
Erica van Boven
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Major Goal ◽  
Literary Life ◽  
Middlebrow Literature ◽  
Life Lessons ◽  
The Status

Abstract Literary life lessons. The first ‘Scharten novel’ as a model of new middlebrow literaturePresenting the case of one of the first bestselling novels by C. and M. Scharten-Antink, this article analyzes how at the beginning of the twentieth century the middlebrow novel was introduced in the Netherlands, which gave rise to a rapidly growing tradition of literary midcult. This new kind of novel, it is argued, is not merely a new genre, yet is a product of new cultural practices in which authors and publishers cooperated. In order to produce the middlebrow novel for a vast and new reading public, they combined existing, longstanding models with new ones. The concept of ‘model’ is used here to analyze the new middlebrow practice from three interrelated perspectives. First, I conceive of ‘model’ as the repertoire, the sets of rules available at a given time, on which authors and publishers could base their choices and actions. Second, I argue that, in literary criticism, the new middlebrow novel soon rose to the status of a model itself. Third, I demonstrate that the major goal of the middlebrow novel was, by way of ‘fictional modelization’, to provide the reader with life-lessons, models to live with.

scholarly journals TOTALITARIAN AND KAZAKH LITERARY CRITICISM

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 118-122
Author(s):  
Sarzhan Takirov ◽  
Zhansaya Zharylgapov ◽  
Zhanar Rustemova ◽  
Bibi Syzdykova ◽  
Zhanaidar Zhumageldin
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
The Way

Purpose: The article deals with the urgent problems of Kazakh literary criticism of the forties of the twentieth century. Tracked artistic processes of a specified period and impact on artistic nature of the writers of the totalitarian system Methodology: Investigations which only started in Kazakh literary studies, under the ground of contradicting with Marxism-Leninism outlook, were considered wrong, and remarkable poets and writers, scientists and literary scholars were subjected to repression, besides national criticism and literary studies turned into a familiar ideological bludgeon. Due to this reason, criticism, and literary studies, even being guided by Marxism-Leninism methodology, was forced to deal with serious issues which time presented with them; denying the way they had paved, they had to work with investigations in a new direction. It is important to note that national literary studies, particularly literary criticism, overcoming hardships of ideological grip, which brought huge grief of burden in 1937-38, in 1940 stepped ahead on the way of formation and improvement. Result: The authors of the article examine genre originality of literary criticism. However, we consider in detail such types as a challenging article, a polemic article, literary review and others. Applications: This research can be used for the universities, teachers, and students. Novelty/Originality: In this research, the model of Totalitarian and Kazakh literary criticism is presented in a comprehensive and complete manner.

scholarly journals Leer la superficie: la presencia de Gilles Deleuze en la era posteórica de la crítica literaria

2018 ◽  
pp. 466-472
Author(s):  
David Pruneda Sentíes
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
American Academy ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
French Theory ◽  
Siglo Xx ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

El objetivo de este artículo es demostrar que existe una marcada presencia de las ideas de Gilles Deleuze en la era posteórica de la crítica literaria. Para tal propósito, en primer lugar se hace una revisión sucinta de la recepción de las ideas filosóficas francesas en la academia estadounidense de fines del siglo XX, creadora de la hoy llamada Teoría francesa en los estudios literarios. En segundo lugar, este artículo se centra en el análisis de la lectura de superficie, una propuesta de crítica literaria de Sharon Marcus y Stephen Best. Aunque el nombre de Deleuze no aparezca en los fundamentos de esta propuesta, este artículo argumenta que la lectura de superficie es en esencia una práctica deleuziana.                                                                                                                                                                                     The objective of this article is to demonstrate that there is a marked presence of the ideas of Gilles Deleuze in the post-theoretical era of literary criticism. For this purpose, we first make a succinct review of the reception of French philosophical ideas in the American academy of the late twentieth century, creator of the so-called French theory in literary studies. Second, this article focuses on the analysis of surface reading, a literary criticism proposal by Sharon Marcus and Stephen Best. Although the name of Deleuze does not appear in the foundations of this proposal, this article argues that the reading of the surface is essentially a Deleuzian practice.

Hopscotch Modernism: On Everyday Life and the Blurring of Art and Social Science

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Highmore
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Systematic Study ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Health Centre ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Modernist Literature ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Point Of Departure

From a remarkably innovative point of departure, Ben Highmore (University of Sussex) suggests that modernist literature and art were not the only cultural practices concerned with reclaiming the everyday and imbuing it with significance. At the same time, Roger Caillois was studying the spontaneous interactions involved in games such as hopscotch, while other small scale institutions such as the Pioneer Health Centre in Peckham, London attempted to reconcile systematic study and knowledge with the non-systematic exchanges in games and play. Highmore suggests that such experiments comprise a less-often recognised ‘modernist heritage’, and argues powerfully for their importance within early-twentieth century anthropology and the newly-emerged field of cultural studies.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Television Film ◽  
Popular Image

The introductory chapter discusses the popular image of the ‘Romantic mad poet’ in television, film, theatre, fiction, the history of literary criticism, and the intellectual history of the twentieth century and its countercultures, including anti-psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Existing literary-historical work on related topics is assessed, before the introduction goes on to suggest why some problems or difficulties in writing about this subject might be productive for further cultural history. The introduction also considers at length the legacy of Michel Foucault’s Folie et Déraison (1961), and the continued viability of Foucauldian methods and concepts for examining literary-cultural representations of madness after the half-century of critiques and controversies following that book’s publication. Methodological discussion both draws on and critiques the models of historical sociology used by George Becker and Sander L. Gilman to discuss genius, madness, deviance, and stereotype in the nineteenth century. A note on terminology concludes the introduction.

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