Reading Ideas in Victorian Literature: Literary Content as Artistic Experience

Description:

Argues against the repeated emphasis on literary form and for the artistic importance of literary content
Appeals to those interested in philosophy and literature, especially the philosophy of literatureBrings together thinkers from the analytic and continental traditions in aestheticsContains an updated and expanded version of the award-winning essay 'In Defence of Paraphrase'Makes a case for why Victorian literature and Victorian moral thought are worthy of attention Offers new readings of George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, and Augusta Webster

It is natural to assume that if works of literature are artistically valuable, it's not because of anything they say but because of what they are: beautiful. Works of art try to say nothing, to use their content only as matter for realizing the beauty of complex form. But what if appreciating the things a work of literature has to say is a way of appreciating it as a work of art? Often dismissed as too lengthy, messy, and preachy to qualify as genuine art, in fact Victorian narrative challenges our conceptions about what makes art worth engaging.

Brief description: Patrick Fessenbecker is Assistant Professor, Program in Cultures, Civilizations, and Ideas, Bilkent University.

Review Quotes: This highly sophisticated landmark book adamantly challenges our fascination with form and replaces it unapologetically with content, the contemporary 'mark of Cain'. The primacy of thinking and ideas in literature takes the author from philosophers as diverse as Henry Sidgwick and Martha Nussbaum and to writers as different as Trollope and Augusta Webster. Essential reading for those concerned with ethics and aesthetics in literary criticism.-- "Isobel Armstrong, Birkbeck, University of London"