What grounds the fictional world of a novel? Or is such a world
peculiarly groundless? In a powerful engagement with the latest
debates in novel theory, Daniel Wright investigates how novelists
reckon with the ontological status of their works. Philosophers who
debate whether fictional worlds exist take the novel as an
ontological problem to be solved; instead, Wright reveals the novel
as a genre of immanent ontological critique. Wright argues that the
novel imagines its own metaphysical "grounds" through figuration,
understanding fictional being as self-sufficient, cohesive, and
alive, rather than as beholden to the actual world as an
existential anchor. Through philosophically attuned close readings
of novels and reflections on writerly craft by Thomas Hardy, Olive
Schreiner, Colson Whitehead, Virginia Woolf, Zadie Smith, Henry
James, and Akwaeke Emezi, Wright shares an impassioned vision of
reading as stepping into ontologically terraformed worlds, and of
literary criticism as treading and re-treading the novel's grounds.
General
Imprint: |
Stanford University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
2024 |
First published: |
2024 |
Authors: |
Daniel Wright
|
Dimensions: |
216 x 140mm (L x W) |
Pages: |
216 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-5036-3683-5 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
1-5036-3683-6 |
Barcode: |
9781503636835 |
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