Literature and Understanding: The Value of a Close Reading of Literary Texts (Literature and Education)

Synopsis

Literature and Understanding investigates the cognitive gain from literature by focussing on a reader’s close analysis of a literary text. It examines the meaning of ‘literature’, outlines the most prominent positions in the literary cognitivism debate, explores the practice of close reading from a philosophical perspective, provides a fresh account of what we mean by ‘understanding’ and in so doing opens up a new area of research in the philosophy of literature. This book provides a different reply to the challenge that we can’t learn anything worthwhile from reading literary fiction. It makes the innovative case that reading literary fiction as literature rather than as fiction stimulates five relevant senses of understanding. The book uses examples of irony, metaphor, play with perspective and ambiguity to illustrate this contention. Before arguing that these five senses of understanding bridge the gap between our understanding of a literary text and our understanding of the world beyond that text. The book will be of great interest for researchers, scholars and post-graduate students in the fields of aesthetics, literary theory, literature in education and pedagogy.

Copyright:

2021

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

182 Pages

ISBN-13:

9781000201147

Related ISBNs:

9780367337056, 9780429321382, 9780367563424

Publisher:

Taylor and Francis

Date of Addition:

10/09/20

Copyrighted By:

J. W. Phelan. The right of J. W. Phelan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Education

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.