The science of literature : essays on an incalculable difference / Helmut Müller-Sievers ; translated by Chadwick Truscott Smith, Paul Babinski, and Helmut Müller-Sievers ; with an afterword by David E. Wellbery.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Müller-Sievers, Helmut, author, translator.

Wellbery, David E., author of introduction, etc.

Contributor:

Smith, Chadwick Truscott, translator.

Babinski, Paul, translator.

Series:

Paradigms

Paradigms : Literature and the Human Sciences, 2195-2205 ; Volume 1

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature and science--History and criticism.

Literature and science.

German literature--18th century--History and criticism.

German literature.

German literature--19th century--History and criticism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (276 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berlin, [Germany] : De Gruyter, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

One of the most contentious questions in contemporary literary studies is whether there can ever be a science of literature that can lay claim to objectivity and universality, for example by concentrating on philological criticism, by appealing to cognitive science, or by exposing the underlying media of literary communication. The present collection of essays seeks to open up this discussion by posing the question's historical and systematic double: has there been a science of literature, i.e. a mode of presentation and practice of reference in science that owes its coherence to the discourse of literature? Detailed analyses of scientific, literary and philosophical texts show that from the late 18th to the late 19th century science and literature were bound to one another through an intricate web of mutual dependence and distinct yet incalculable difference. The Science of Literature suggests that this legacy continues to shape the relation between literary and scientific discourses inside and outside of academia.

Contents:

Front matter

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Science of Literature?

1) Poetics of the Life Sciences

Formative Forces: Biological, Philosophical, and Linguistic Generativity

Divining Relations: Forms of Generational Recognition around 1800

Tidings of the Earth: Towards a History of Romantic Erdkunde

On Nerve Fibers: Rhetoric and Brain Anatomy in Georg Büchner

2) The Science of Reading

Reading Off: On the Emergence of the Scientific Gaze

On the Margins of Derrida's Terminology : Deconstruction, Dissemination, mise en abîme

What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?

A Tremendous Chasm: Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, and the Measure of Poetry

3) The Applied Science of Literature

Torque: Life and Motion in the 19th Century

A Doctrine of Transmissions: On the Classification of Machines Around 1800

The Novel Machine: Narration in the 19th Century

The Moment of Narration: Outlines for a Kinematic Study of Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre

Afterword / Wellbery, David E.

List of First Publications

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9783110382198

3110382199

9783110324341

3110324342

OCLC:

949884928