Literature, In Theory Tropes, Subjectivities, Responses and Responsibilities [Hardcover]

Jacques Derrida has argued?about the difference between literature and theory that despite its institutional status, part of its 'institution' is the right of literature to say anything. Literature cannot be defined as such, and as soon as one seeks to produce a reading of the literary, complications arise.?

Yet despite its institutional significance, 'theory' remains something many wish would go away; and which, for others, is still not read, is misread, and remains to be read. Like literature, it remains as an enigmatic identity, resistant to definition, but subject to misperceptions and open to general statements that are more or less inaccurate.

By examining how 'theory' and 'literature' are concepts and names which touch on one other in complex ways, Julian Wolfreys seeks to understand their intersections and differences. Examining a wide range of authors, from Dickens to Joyce, and engaging directly with a number of major theorists, Wolfreys takes the reader on a journey through the issues and ideas involved in reading literature, in theory.

AcknowledgementsForeword, in lieu of an introduction 1. Toward a Phenomenology of Urban Gothic: Dickens's Examples 2. Houses, Homes, Rooms and Tombs: The Unhomely Spaces and Monstrous Economies of Dombey and Son 3. In Visibility or, the Appearance of True Histories': Truth, Confession and Revelation in Anne Bront? 4. Contested Grounds: Historical, Epistemological and Political Identities in Victorian Literature 5. (Sub) Urbi et Orbi: The Little Worlds of London or, Fear, Whimsy, and Singularity 6. Professions: of English Diaspora? 7. No, Not, None, Nothing, Nobody: Place, Pattern, Death and Narratives of Negation in Dubliners 8. A self-referential density': Glyph, Fictions of Transgression and the Theory' Thing 9. Theory' and the novel (and the novel?) 10. Ghosts: of Ourselves or, Drifting with Hardy and Heidegger 11. The reiterable circularity of Being: Poetics, Selfhood, and the Singular Witnel“8