Title: THE FRUSTRATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES OF LITERARY HISTORY
Abstract: A preponderance the books written by scholars are histories. These studies, whether they focus on the works a single author or on a series books by different authors, envision literature?its products and processes?as an object study with a virtual or eventual historical significance. Literary histories are themselves narratives. They tell stories, hopefully in? teresting ones, about those historically conceived movements language, idea, and style that facilitate composition, promote discourse, and enable representa? tion. As teachers and scholars, most us read histories; we value their information and descriptions, their new readings, syntheses critical perspectives, comparative generalizations, and background material. We notice blurbs on book jackets advertising the detailed chronicling particular concerns and fresh readings old favorites. Reading in histories is an en? joyable professional activity. It should not, however, be confused with the of history conceived as a specific mode disciplinary formula? tion sustaining a theoretic level professional inquiry. The writing substantial histories and the reading them are, taken together, the activities which enable discussions to become a living tradition disciplinary inquiry. The constant renegotiation this tradition both registers and creates shifts in our recognition and statement problems; it modifies the literary canon informing secondary school and college curricula; and it reunderstands, perhaps, the nature the mind's verbal exertions and achievements. When reviewing a history for a professional journal, one is obliged to decide whether the work should be ignored, read in, or in the disciplinary-laden sense the word, read. The reviewer's decision about what, or what not, to include in his pr?cis originates with this fundamental value judgment. In the last section this essay, I will pass such a judgment upon two recent histories: Michael Davitt Bell's Development American Romance: The Sacrifice Relation (Chicago: The
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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