Intention and Text: Towards an Intentionality of Literary Form: 192 (Continuum Literary Studies) - Softcover

Mitchell, Kaye

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1441198644 ISBN 13: 9781441198648

Publisher: Continuum, 2011

Synopsis

The question of intention is central to the study of literature. How far can an author's intentions determine the meanings of his/her text? What do we mean by 'intention' in a literary context? What force does the reader’s intention have in the construction of textual meaning? To what extent can a text itself be said to be ‘intentional’? The aim of this book is to provide an in-depth analysis and critique of this concept of intention, its uses within the realms of literary theory, aesthetics, philosophy of language, phenomenology and deconstruction, and its potential for redefinition. Mitchell sets out to re-think intention and interrogate the possibilities of an intentionalism more suited to a formalist or textualist critical methodology. She moves from an assessment of the pitfalls of a traditional authorial intentionalism, towards the formulation of an ‘intentionality of form’, where intention is seen as a formal attribute of the text itself

About this title

About the Author

Kaye Mitchell is
Lecturer in Contemporary Literature in the Centre for New Writing at the
University of Manchester, UK. She is the author of A. L Kennedy
(Palgrave 2007) and Intention and Text
(Continuum, 2008).

Edition details

• Publisher: Continuum
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1441198644
• ISBN 13: 9781441198648
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 190