Details
A special double issue of Publications of the English Goethe
Society to celebrate the 70th birthday of Professor Martin
Swales (UCL, UK)
This volume collects papers from a conference held at the
Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies in October 2010. The
conference aimed to analyse how literary texts articulate (and
give voice to) ideas and ideologies. In contrast to most
philosophy, literature rarely makes claims to systematic
conceptual rigour. Literary statements are always conjectural;
they are also conditioned by the conventions of the genre in
which they are made.
Because literature is such a hypothetical medium of expression,
it is uniquely suited to philosophical experimentation. Indeed,
because literature invokes imagined or remembered experience, it
functions as a laboratory in which ideas may be tested against
experience. Literature's formal qualities, which allow for
statement and counter-statement, move and counter-move, make it a
highly sophisticated mode of discourse in which to test out
ideas. Concepts can be played against each other, and genre
conventions may be adhered to or subverted, in order to create
multiple layers of signification.
The papers presented are published here in this special issue of
Publications of the English Goethe Society, and take account
of German (or European) poetry, drama or prose literature from
1750 to the present day.
Society to celebrate the 70th birthday of Professor Martin
Swales (UCL, UK)
This volume collects papers from a conference held at the
Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies in October 2010. The
conference aimed to analyse how literary texts articulate (and
give voice to) ideas and ideologies. In contrast to most
philosophy, literature rarely makes claims to systematic
conceptual rigour. Literary statements are always conjectural;
they are also conditioned by the conventions of the genre in
which they are made.
Because literature is such a hypothetical medium of expression,
it is uniquely suited to philosophical experimentation. Indeed,
because literature invokes imagined or remembered experience, it
functions as a laboratory in which ideas may be tested against
experience. Literature's formal qualities, which allow for
statement and counter-statement, move and counter-move, make it a
highly sophisticated mode of discourse in which to test out
ideas. Concepts can be played against each other, and genre
conventions may be adhered to or subverted, in order to create
multiple layers of signification.
The papers presented are published here in this special issue of
Publications of the English Goethe Society, and take account
of German (or European) poetry, drama or prose literature from
1750 to the present day.