Speculative Formalism: Literature, Theory, and the Critical Present (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780810134317)

Speculative Formalism engages decisively in recent debates in the literary humanities around form and formalism, making the case for a new, nonmimetic and antihistoricist theory of literary reference. Where formalism has often been accused of sealing texts within themselves, Eyers demonstrates instead how a renewed, speculative formalism can illuminate the particular ways in which literature actively opens onto history, politics, and nature, in a connective movement that puts formal impasses to creative use.

Through a combination of philosophical reflection and close rhetorical readings, Eyers explores the possibilities and limits of deconstructive approaches to the literary, the impact of the "digital humanities" on theory, and the prospects for a formalist approach to "world literature." The book includes sustained close readings of Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Yeats, and Wallace Stevens, as well as Alain Badiou, Paul de Man, and Fredric Jameson.


Author: Tom Eyers
ISBN-10: 0810134314
ISBN-13: 9780810134317
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Language: English
Published: 03/15/2017
Pages: 256
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.00w x 0.80d