The Philosophy of Modern Literary Theory

Book Details

• Author: Zima P V

• Publisher: Rawat Publications

• Language: English

• Edition: 1st

• ISBN: 9788131606049

• Cover: Hardcover

• Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.0 inches

About the Book

The Philosophy of Modern Literary Theory is a concise yet profound exploration of the foundational problems, movements, and key figures of modern literary criticism. This volume systematically situates major literary theories within the philosophical and aesthetic traditions from which they emerged, offering readers a deeper, contextualized understanding.

Spanning Anglo-American New Criticism to Deconstruction and Postmodernism, the book traverses philosophical landscapes across Eastern Europe, France, Germany, Italy, and North America. It examines the theoretical contributions of thinkers like Adorno, Bakhtin, Barthes, Benjamin, Derrida, Eco, Gadamer, Hegel, Heidegger, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, Lyotard, and many others.

Zima's analysis extends from reader-response theories and semiotics to Marxist and psychoanalytic literary frameworks, effectively blending philosophy, aesthetics, and critical theory into one cohesive narrative. This work is indispensable for students, scholars, and serious readers of literary criticism who seek to understand not just what these theories say, but why they came to be.

Contents

1. The Philosophical and Aesthetic Foundations of Literary Theories

2. Anglo-American New Criticism and Russian Formalism

3. Czech Structuralism Between Kant, Hegel, and the Avant-Garde

4. Problems of Reader-Response Criticism: From Hermeneutics to Phenomenology

5. From Marxism to Critical Theory and Postmodernism

6. The Aesthetics of Semiotics: Greimas, Eco, Barthes

7. The Nietzschean Aesthetics of Deconstruction

8. Lyotard’s Postmodern Aesthetics and Kant’s Notion of the Sublime

9. Towards a Critical Theory of Literature

About the Author

Peter V. Zima is a distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and the Director of the Institute of General and Comparative Literature at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. Renowned for his interdisciplinary approach, Zima’s scholarly work bridges literature, philosophy, and aesthetics, making him one of the foremost voices in modern literary theory.