Because I am not creative enough to think up clever lists like, Ben, Loren, or even Mike; I just recycle their great ideas. I suffer from an acute case of 'standing on the shoulders of giants syndrome,' or SSoGS.
However here is a partial list of Literary Critics Essential for the Theologian:
- Harold Bloom
- Julia Kristeva
- Roland Barthes
- Umberto Eco
- Wolfgang Iser
- Edward Said
- Mikhail Bakhtin
- Gerard Genette
- Terry Eagleton
- Jonathan Culler
- Fredric Jameson
- Robert Polzin (he counts!)
- Sigmund Freud
- Jacques Lacan
- Ferdinand de Saussure
I would love to see someone make a list for socio-rhetorical critics! And I am sorry the list is so dominated by male critics.
4 comments:
Thanks for the list and after all don't we all build on the works of others. I do have a question for you since you are the current intertextuality expert in the bloggosphere. Is it acceptable to use the designation "intertextual" broadly enough to speak of the basic ways that a prior text may influence a later text? I am attempting to use intertextuality to describe a structural phenomenon, but I am reticent about using such a loaded term in a manner slightly out of the ordinary. In other words, I want to use the term intertextual to describe how one text may be loosely structured on earlier texts. What do you think.
Sameer,
No your wrong, Sternberg does not count, Polzin rocks that is why he made the list.
Alan,
Wow what an honour, although I feel that I must defer the title to Pete Phillips over at postmodernbible.
Genette has published two books that speak to this topic. But I think Palimpsestes (the other is Architext), might adresses the issue of 'structure' in intertextuality. Genette here proposes the term 'transtextuality' as a more inclusive term than 'intertextuality'. He lists the five subtypes of transtextuality as being intertextuality (quotation, plagiarism, and allusion); paratextuality (the relation between a text and its 'paratext', that is the material which surrounds the main body of the text like titles, epigraphs, illustrations, notes, first drafts, etc.); architextuality (a tacit, perhaps even unconscious, designation of a text as part of a genre or genres; although Genette refers to designation by the text itself, it could also be applied to its framing by readers); metatextuality (explicit or implicit critical commentary of one text on another text); hypertextuality (the relation between a text and a preceding 'hypotext' - a text or genre on which it is based but which it transforms, modifies, elaborates or extends; including parody, spoof, sequel, and translation).
I think you can make the case, and you should be able to use the term intertextuality to do so, if by structure you have in mind something that would set a text apart like a genre of sorts. I don't think a chiasum would work as signifying intertextuality, unless there was a definative chiasum in the culture that people in the know would obviously see. But if you want to be esoteric just plug in one of Genette's terms, or pull a Harold Bloom and coin a Greek term to describe what you are trying to do.
Hope this helps! Funny Pete and I were discussing this same issue in an e-mail exchange. You might want to get his take, he really is a smart chap (also a Sheffield Grad!)
Thanks Bryan that really does help. I might use one of Genette's terms like transtextuality or more to the point architextuality. My hesitance to use these terms or to coin my own is that I want to use something that is fairly well established. Although, established is relative to one's particluar stripe of literary persuasions. Thanks for the reference.
Any other title beside Palimpsestes that you would reccommend?
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