Review of Postmodern Literary Theory: An Introduction (Paperback)

No one has ever claimed that literary theory in general or postmodernism in particular was an easy task, so I often wonder about the level of complexity in any title of the same that claims "introduction" as part of it.In Niall Lucy's POSTMODERN LITERARY THEORY: AN INTRODUCTION, what I got was a reasonably complete discussion of the byzantine pathways of Postmodern thought--but as an introduction for the novice, it did not succeed on that level.Lucy himself admits as much in his preface when he notes that dense prose and literary theory go together in lockstep, so it should have behooved him to take pains to remember who and what his target audience was.I have a reasonably strong grasp of theory and I must admit to having been baffled enough to read more than a few pages more than a few times. The best parts of Lucy's text were the preface and the conclusion.It was here that he tends toward lucidity.Over and above the denseness of the text (which I totally expected), I also found (but was hoping not to) was a value-free, non-ideological exegesis of the topic.Unfortunately, what I found was a mode of thought distressingly conspicuous in nearly all adherents of Postmodern thought-namely that regardless of the text involved, all readings are misreadings and that each text has no clear subject matter simmering under the surface.Perhaps such attitudes go with the territory, but it would have been refreshing had Lucy, or any other Postmodern critic for that matter, played literary devil's advocate by considering the relative worth of the traditionalists who do not.Still, for those who already are well familiar with and agree with the pantheon of French gods, POSTMODERN LITERARY THOUGHT is a welcome addition to their bookshelf even if an introduction it is not.

Product Description
"You couldn't use terms like 'text' in an English course without incurring the disapproval of some crusty old moralist...."

"In a postmodern world, literature is just another text.... "

"Forget depth: think surface! ...... everything is a text."

In this brilliantly provocative and comprehensively informative introductory text, Niall Lucy shows the student how postmodern literary theory derives from a late eighteenth-century romantic tradition. In that tradition the literary was conceived as inseparable from the literary theoretical. But for postmodernism, Lucy argues, what was once the romantic space of the literary becomes a general plane of human existence. There, concepts of identity, origin and truth are seen as multiple and structureless assemblages rather than as grounds for understanding human "being" and culture.

Lucy uses the work of Hobbes, Johnson, Rousseau, Kant, Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger to historicize his analysis. Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Baudrillard, Derrida, Kristeva, Lyotard, Deleuze and Guattari, and Hassan are among the more recent theorists with whom he engages. His discussion embraces not only "theorists" but also"'writers", including Acker, Auster, Barth, and Pynchon. Lucy's concluding response to the fascinating range of problems and issues he reveals is to propose a pragmatic and ethical, poststructuralist solution.

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