A Companion to Literary Evaluation (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture)

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Chapter 1 Literary Values
	The Varieties of Literary Value Judgments
	The Literary Institution and Appreciation
	Key Distinctions about Value
		Valuing as x, as y
		Intrinsic and Instrumental Values
		Text/Work
		Subjective/Objective
		Lessons From Hume
		Being Valued/Being Valuable
	Canonicity
		The Idea of a Canon
		Historical Causes and Aesthetic Reasons
	Description, Interpretation, and Evaluation
		Thick and Thin Descriptions
		Interpretation and Value
		A Hermeneutic Circle
	Ethical Criticism and Value
		The Edification Issue
		The Ethical Flaw Issue
		Moderate Moralism and The Failure of Uptake
		Ethicism and Merited Response
		Moralism and Formalism
	Notes
Chapter 2 Complexity as a Criterion for the Evaluation of Literature
	Introduction
	Approaching Complexity
	Complexity in Fictional Narratives
		Complexity and Perspective
		Complexity and Linearity
	Conclusion: Reflecting on Complexity
	Notes
	References
Chapter 3 Schooled Aesthetic Asymmetries: (Back)firing the Canonin Secondary Education
	Nurturing the Poetic Spirit
	Theory: Muffled and Distorted Readings
	Practicality: Performance and the Classroom
	The Evaluative Legacy of New Criticism: Examination Criteria and the Avoidance of Passivity
	Questioning and Evaluative Subjectivity
	“Persistent Contentiousness”
	References
Chapter 4 Defining Literature: The Route to Aesthetic Evaluation
	Introduction
	Aristotle
	References
	Romanticism and Transcendental Poetry
		The Romantic Evaluation of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
	Beyond the Romanticism: Poets and Philosophers
	Poetry and Philosophy
	Philosophy: Linguistics and Poetry
	Literature and Philosophy
	References
Chapter 5 Kathleen Raine: The Less Received
	The Voice That Speaks to None
	Reject of the Waste Land
	Auden’s Gee Force
	A Doubting Thomas
	Beyond Auden’s Gee Force, Beyond Thomas’s Doubt
	Accolade from the Less Deceived
	Bibliography
		Poetry
		Autobiographies
		Critical Books and Essays
		Books on Kathleen Raine’s Life and Works
		General
Chapter 6 “Is (This) Translation Any Good?”: The Evaluation of Literary Translation
	The Value of Translation or Is Translation Any Good?
	The Evaluation of Translation or Is This Translation Any Good?
	Conclusions
	References
Chapter 7 The Algorithm of Beauty: Aesthetic Judgment as a Science1
	“The Figure in the Carpet”: Finding the Pattern
	“Laying Bare the Device” and ostranenie
	Computational Creativity and Systems of Beauty: Techne or Genius?
	Deep Learning, Big Data, Emotion and Consciousness
	Note
	References
Chapter 8 Literary Value and the Question of Insight on Humanly Relevant Matters
	Notes
	Bibliography
Chapter 9 How Books Get Reviewed: Evaluation and the Freelance Journalist
Chapter 10 A Lifetime of Evaluation
Chapter 11 Evaluating Unfinished Novels: Octavia E. Butler and the Improbability of Justice
	Unfinished Works
	Parable of the Trickster
	Unique Biographical Significance
	Poetics of Process
	Notes
	References
Chapter 12 “How to Bring So Goode a Matter into a Better Forme”: The Value of the Horse in Early Modern Writing1
	The Masters
	The Horse
	Archival sources
	Notes
	References
	Bibliography
Chapter 13 Reading Performance for the Values Underpinning Production
	Introduction
		Why Evaluate Theater in Performance?
		Values and Ideology
	Processes for Evaluating Theater in Performance
		Semiotics
		Materialist Conditions
		Audiences and Reception Theory
		Politics, Form, and Style
	Production Analysis in Practice
		Contextual and Materialist Conditions
		Form, Populism, and Multiculturalism
		Technology, Audience Interaction, and Use of Space
		Costume
		Cross-gender Performance and Representation
		Puck, Queerness, and Audience Interaction
	Conclusion
	References
Chapter 14 Bridging the Gap between Page and Performance Poetry
	Introduction
	Body and Voice
	The Poem as an Object and the Poem as an Event
	Embodied Meaning
	A More Inclusive Poetics
	Conclusion
	Notes
	References
Chapter 15 Aesthetics and Efficacy in Applied and Community Theater
	Case Study: YFCU Tyrone Rose Bowl
	Disrupting Definitions
	Autonomy and Heteronomy
	Aesthetics, Affect, and Effect
	Paternalism and the Deadly
	Social Value and Cultural Value
	Authenticity, Authorship, and Authority
	Balancing Intentionality and Aesthetics
	Summary
	Notes
	References
Chapter 16 Antonin Artaud Beyond Judgment: A Radio Reading of “To Have Done With The Judgement of God” with Local Prisoners
	Introduction
	Artaud and the Radio Play
	Artaud Prefigures Deleuze and Braidotti
	Why This Art(form) and Why Now?
	Prison Radio Today
	Conclusion
	Bibliography
Chapter 17 “Chief of the Second Rate”: James Shirley and Dramatic Value
	Shirley’s Reputation, Early Modern, and Modern
	A Close Reading of The Court Secret
	Conclusion: Second Rate, Third Rate, and The Worst: Ranking the Early Modern Dramatic Corpus in the Late-seventeenth Century
	Notes
	References
Chapter 18 “The Glories of our Blood and State” and The Lady of Pleasure: The Genius of [Counterfactual] Britain’s National Writer——James Shirley
	Introduction: Charles I and James Shirley
	The Lady of Pleasure: Act One
	Act Two
	Act Three
	Act Four
	Act Five
	Conclusion: Charles III and James Shirley
	Note
	References
Chapter 19 Evaluating Literary Evaluation
	An Endnote on Methodology
	References
Chapter 20 The Horrible Legacy of Modernism
Chapter 21 Evaluating Poems: Amy Burns and Richard Bradford
	Style as an Evaluative Focus
	Popular Culture
	The Moral Dimension
Index
EULA