This collection of essays on the idea of authority in literature reflects recent developments without succumbing to any of the simplified versions of them which are nowadays on offer, and indeed explore many of the complexities that in fact surround the concept of literary authority. With one or two exceptions they do so, by and large, as representative products of an era that, as Eagleton and others have suggested, might be considered as coming, certainly 'after grand theory,' and perhaps 'after theory' tout court, a situation which in many respects, again paradoxically, recent theory may be said to have partly served to prepare. Ours is perhaps a time, we think, in which the rediscovery and reinvention of Goethe's phrase 'zarte Empirie' ('delicate empiricism') with its special notion of the relation between theory and praxis, may be taking place. The whole quotation from Maximen und Reflexionen runs as follows -'Es gibt eine zarte Empirie die sich mit dem Gegenstand innigst identisch macht und dadurch zur eigentlichen Theorie wird' ('there exists a delicate empiricism, which makes itself utterly identical with the object, thereby becoming true theory') - and so once again leads us towards fresh paradox. And whilst it would doubtless be pretentious to claim that more than a very few of our papers can be linked with so subtle a version of empirical method, all of them can be seen to exemplify the phrase from Schoenberg that Barthes was so fond of quoting, that it will always be possible to write good music in C Major. What we have here, at the very least, is plenty of good critical writing in empirical C major illuminating various aspects of the concept of authority in a wide variety of authors and literary and cultural texts drawn from a wide variety of periods of English, Scottish, Irish and postcolonial writing and ranging from the Middle Ages to the present.

Writing and the Idea of Authority

MICHELUCCI, STEFANIA;
2006-01-01

Abstract

This collection of essays on the idea of authority in literature reflects recent developments without succumbing to any of the simplified versions of them which are nowadays on offer, and indeed explore many of the complexities that in fact surround the concept of literary authority. With one or two exceptions they do so, by and large, as representative products of an era that, as Eagleton and others have suggested, might be considered as coming, certainly 'after grand theory,' and perhaps 'after theory' tout court, a situation which in many respects, again paradoxically, recent theory may be said to have partly served to prepare. Ours is perhaps a time, we think, in which the rediscovery and reinvention of Goethe's phrase 'zarte Empirie' ('delicate empiricism') with its special notion of the relation between theory and praxis, may be taking place. The whole quotation from Maximen und Reflexionen runs as follows -'Es gibt eine zarte Empirie die sich mit dem Gegenstand innigst identisch macht und dadurch zur eigentlichen Theorie wird' ('there exists a delicate empiricism, which makes itself utterly identical with the object, thereby becoming true theory') - and so once again leads us towards fresh paradox. And whilst it would doubtless be pretentious to claim that more than a very few of our papers can be linked with so subtle a version of empirical method, all of them can be seen to exemplify the phrase from Schoenberg that Barthes was so fond of quoting, that it will always be possible to write good music in C Major. What we have here, at the very least, is plenty of good critical writing in empirical C major illuminating various aspects of the concept of authority in a wide variety of authors and literary and cultural texts drawn from a wide variety of periods of English, Scottish, Irish and postcolonial writing and ranging from the Middle Ages to the present.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11567/243576
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