In _Roman Jakobson_ Richard Bradford reasserts the value of Jakobson's work, arguing that he has a great deal to offer contemporary critical theory and providing a critical appraisal the sweep of Jakobson's career. Bradford re-establishes Jakobson's work as vital to our understanding of the relationship between language and poetry. By exploring Jakobson's thesis that poetry is the primary object language, _Roman Jakobson: Life, Language, Art_ offers a new reading of his work which includes the most radical elements of modernism. This (...) book will be invaluable to students of Jakobson and to anyone interested in the development of critical theory, linguistics and stylistics. (shrink)

The philosophy of literature, as developed by analytical philosophers, places the values of literature, implicitly or explicitly, at the centre of its core debates. Is literature an honorific (value-laden) concept or a descriptive one? What is literary interpretation if not primarily the uncovering of deeper significance and interest in works of literature? What about the pursuit of truth and knowledge? Is it not one of the most valued aspirations of literature? And can readers of novels not sharpen their moral sensibility, (...) their empathy, their understanding of human weakness, desires and follies, by engaging with the lives of fictional characters? Can the great works of fiction or poetry or drama not offer enduring psychological rewards, not just in the pleasures of literary artifice but in having the imagination stretched through immersion in worlds and possibilities well beyond the banalities of everyday life? These are some of the debates, even if no final resolution has emerged. Are there such distinctive literary values as implied in these debates? Is it possible to generalize across literary genres or are there only, at best, values of poetry, the novel, the short story, drama? And how are individual works to be evaluated? Are there objective values or only values relative to individual readers or "communities"? Is there a canon of great works, and if so, how is it constructed? How do moral values relate to literary values? Can great works be immoral? These are live issues for the philosopher of literature. (shrink)

A brief essay on taste -- The dreadful legacy of modernism -- Is Shakespeare any good? -- Mad theories -- Defining literature: the bete noir of academia -- Evaluation -- Popular literature -- Is literature any good for us?.

In Roman Jakobson Richard Bradford reasserts the value of Jakobson's work, arguing that he has a great deal to offer contemporary critical theory and providing a critical appraisal the sweep of Jakobson's career. Bradford re-establishes Jakobson's work as vital to our understanding of the relationship between language and poetry. By exploring Jakobson's thesis that poetry is the primary object language, Roman Jakobson: Life, Language, Art offers a new reading of his work which includes the most radical elements of modernism. This (...) book will be invaluable to students of Jakobson and to anyone interested in the development of critical theory, linguistics and stylistics. (shrink)