Modernist Fiction and Vagueness Philosophy, Form, and Language [Hardcover]

Modernist Fiction and Vagueness marries the artistic and philosophical versions of vagueness, linking the development of literary modernism to changes in philosophy.Modernist Fiction and Vagueness examines the development of the modernist novel in relation to changing approaches to philosophy. It argues that the puzzle of vagueness challenged the great thinkers of the early twentieth century and led to dramatic changes in both fiction and philosophy. Building on recent interest in the connections among analytic philosophy, pragmatism, and modern literature, this book posits that literary vagueness should be read as a defining quality of modernist fiction.Modernist Fiction and Vagueness examines the development of the modernist novel in relation to changing approaches to philosophy. It argues that the puzzle of vagueness challenged the great thinkers of the early twentieth century and led to dramatic changes in both fiction and philosophy. Building on recent interest in the connections among analytic philosophy, pragmatism, and modern literature, this book posits that literary vagueness should be read as a defining quality of modernist fiction.Modernist Fiction and Vagueness marries the artistic and philosophical versions of vagueness, linking the development of literary modernism to changes in philosophy. This book argues that the problem of vagueness  language's unavoidable imprecision  led to transformations in both fiction and philosophy in the early twentieth century. Both twentieth-century philosophers and their literary counterparts (including James, Eliot, Woolf, and Joyce) were fascinated by the vagueness of words and the dream of creating a perfectly precise language. Building on recent interest in the connections among analytic philosophy, pragmatism, and modern literature, Modernist Fiction and Vagueness demonstrates that vagueness should be read not as an artistic problem but as a defining quality of modernist fiction.Preface; Acknowledgments; IntroduclCÎ