The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act

Fredric Jameson

Veröffentlicht von Cornell University Press 2015

The Political Unconscious

Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act

Fredric Jameson

https://doi.org/10.7591/9780801471575

Übersicht
Inhalt

Über dieses Buch

Fredric Jameson, in The Political Unconscious, opposes the view that literary creation can take place in isolation from its political context. He asserts the priority of the political interpretation of literary texts, claiming it to be at the center of all reading and understanding, not just a supplement or auxiliary to other methods current today.

Jameson supports his thesis by looking closely at the nature of interpretation. Our understanding, he says, is colored by the concepts and categories that we inherit from our culture's interpretive tradition and that we use to comprehend what we read. How then can the literature of other ages be understood by readers from a present that is culturally so different from the past? Marxism lies at the foundation of Jameson's answer, because it conceives of history as a single collective narrative that links past and present; Marxist literary criticism reveals the unity of that uninterrupted narrative.

Jameson applies his interpretive theory to nineteenth- and twentieth-century texts, including the works of Balzac, Gissing, and Conrad. Throughout, he considers other interpretive approaches to the works he discusses, assessing the importance and limitations of methods as different as Lacanian psychoanalysis, semiotics, dialectical analysis, and allegorical readings. The book as a whole raises directly issues that have been only implicit in Jameson's earlier work, namely the relationship between dialectics and structuralism, and the tension between the German and the French aesthetic traditions.

The Political Unconscious is a masterly introduction to both the method and the practice of Marxist criticism. Defining a mode of criticism and applying it successfully to individual works, it bridges the gap between theoretical speculation and textual analysis.

Autoreninformation

Fredric Jameson is William A. Lane, Jr., Professor of Comparative Literature and Professor of Romance Studies at Duke University. His many books include Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, The Cultural Turn, A Singular Modernity, Archaeologies of the Future, and The Modernist Papers.

Rezensionen

"A major work of critical theory. . . . The Political Unconscious integrates and refines a vast body of theoretical work, demonstrating a superb mastery of the field of contemporary criticism. The result . . . is a compelling, forceful argument in favor of the primacy of Marxism over contending strategies of interpretation."—Nineteenth-Century Fiction

"Monumental . . . . Its learning and range of references are exceeded only be the imperial embrace of its complex argument, whose elaboration never imposes a sacrifice of clarity. . . . Indispensable for all university and college libraries."—Choice

"Fredric Jameson is the best Marxist critic writing today, possibly the best social-historically oriented critic of our time. It seems impossible for him to write anything that is not illuminating in an original way. There is no cant, no cliché, no jargon in his work, only sustained dialectical reflection, His thesis concerning the political content of 'the unconscious' is provocative but theoretically grounded and demonstrated by close readings of texts worthy of the best formalists. No one else encompasses as many positions within a disciplined critical practice. The Political Unconscious is a major work, and it should be read by historians, social scientists, and philosophers, as well as by literary scholars."—Hayden White, University of California, Santa Cruz

Fachgebiete

Frontmatter Öffentlich zugänglich PDF downloaden	1
Contents Öffentlich zugänglich PDF downloaden	7
Preface Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	9
On Interpretation: Literature As A Socially Symbolic Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	17
Magical Narratives: On The Dialectical Use Of Genre Criticism Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	103
Realism And Desire: Balzac And The Problem Of The Subject Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	151
Authentic Ressentiment: Generic Discontinuities And Ideologemes In The "Experimental" Novels Of George Gissing Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	185
Romance And Reification: Plot Construction And Ideological Closure In Joseph Conrad Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	206
Conclusion: The Dialectic Of Utopia And Ideology Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	281
Index Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	301

(English)

Sprache: Englisch
Verlag: Cornell University Press
Copyrightjahr: 2015
Zielgruppe: General/trade;
Seiten
- Inhalt: 320
Schlagworte: Literary Studies

eBook

Veröffentlicht: 3. März 2015
ISBN: 9780801471575