The Singularity of Literature

What is literature? What is the quality in a text that leads a reader to call it 'literary'? What is the 'certain way' of reading that calls into being the literary potential of a text? Why have we been unable to definitively answer these questions, and where does that leave us? Derek Attridge argues that the impossibility of definition leaves us at a beginning. From the point where literature resists definition, we can begin afresh to explore its workings. Rethinking aspects of the literary that have too long been taken for granted, this volume: considers literature's evasion from definition in light of the practice and institution of Western art; provides a rich new vocabulary for discussions of the literary, reworking such terms as invention, singularity, otherness, alterity, the event, performance and form; returns literature to the realm of ethics, and argues the ethical value of the literary institution to a culture; demonstrates how a new understanding of the literary might be applied in a 'responsible', creative mode of reading. The Singularity of Literature is a brilliant contribution to the theory of literature.

ISBN 0415335930   Pages 224 ISBN13 9780415335935 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd   Weight (grammes) 222 Imprint Routledge   Published in London Format Paperback   Height (mm) 198 Publication date 08 Apr 2004   Width (mm) 129 Library of Congress PN49.A75 2   Spine width (mm) 15 DEWEY 801   Academic level Tertiary education, Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC22

		Preface
1		Introductory		1
2		Creation and the other		17
3		Originality and invention		35
4		Inventive language and the literary event		55
5		Singularity		63
6		Reading and responding		79
7		Performance		95
8		Form, meaning, context		107
9		Responsibility and ethics		123
10		An everyday impossibility		133
App		Debts and directions		139
		Notes		147
		Bibliography		163
		Index		173