The Language Of Literature

Essays discuss realism, futurism, Dada, the grammar of poetry, Baudelaire, Shakespeare, Yeats, Turgenev, Pasternak, Blake, and semiotic theory.

There is a marked awareness about the language of literature and its meaning both in Indian and Western aesthetic thinking. The aestheticians of both schools hold that the language of literature embodies a significant aspect of human experience, and represents a creative pattern of verbal structure to impart meaning effectively. Modern Western aesthetic thinking, which includes theories like formalism, new criticism, stylistics, structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, discourse analysis, semiotics and dialogic criticism, in one way or another emphasizes the study of the language of literature in order to understand its meaning. Similarly, there is a distinct focus on the language of literature and its meaning in Indian literary theories which include the theory of rasa (aesthetic experience), alaṁkāra (the poetic figure), rīti (diction), dhvani (suggestion), vakrokti (oblique expression) and aucitya (propriety). This book explores how the language of literature and its meaning have been dealt with in both Indian and Western aesthetic thinking. In doing so, the study concentrates on Kuntaka’s theory of vakrokti and Ānandavardhana’s theory of dhvani in Indian aesthetic thinking and Russian formalism and deconstruction in Western thinking. The book categorically focuses on the intersection between the theory of vakrokti and Russian formalism and the meeting-point between the theory of dhvani and deconstruction.

Essential study guides for the future linguist. The Language of Literature is a general introduction to the methods and principles behind stylistics. It is suitable for advanced level students and beyond. Written with input from the Cambridge English Corpus, it provides students with an introduction to stylistics with texts from different genres. It takes the approach that the best way to study literary texts is to focus closely on language. Using short activities to help explain analysis methods, this book guides students through major modern issues and concepts. It summarises key concerns and findings, while providing inspiration for language investigations and non-examined assessments (NEAs) with research suggestions.

Reproduction of the original: Aunt Phillis ́s Cabin by Mary H. Eastman

Table of contents

The Language and Literature Reader is an invaluable resource for students of English literature, language, and linguistics. Bringing together the most significant work in the field with integrated editorial material, this Reader is a structured and accessible tool for the student and scholar. Divided into three sections, Foundations, Developments and New Directions, the Reader provides an overview of the discipline from the early stages in the 1960s and 70s, through the new theories and practices of the 1980s and 90s, to the most recent and contemporary work in the field. Each article contains a brief introduction by the editors situating it in the context of developing work in the discipline and glossing it in terms of the section and of the book as a whole. The final section concludes with a ‘history and manifesto’, written by the editors, which places developments in the area of stylistics within a brief history of the field and offers a polemical perspective on the future of a growing and influential discipline.