Experiencing Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Deweyan Account: 162 (Studies in Pragmatism and Values, 162) - Softcover

Efron, Arthur

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9042016949 ISBN 13: 9789042016941

Publisher: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2005

Synopsis

This book interprets Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles with the openness toward experience recommended by John Dewey’s Art as Experience. The characters of Tess are considered as real people with sexual bodies and complex minds. Efron identifies the “experience blockers” that the critical tradition has stumbled upon, and defends Hardy’s involvement in telling his story. Efron offers a new way of evaluating literature inspired by Dewey’s pragmatist aesthetics.

About this title

Review

"an engaging, direct and honest exploration of Hardy's novel. ... This book will delight, intrigue, challenge and infuriate in equal measure; but agree or disagree, one is guaranteed a refreshing and often enlightening re-visitation of a much-loved tale." in: The Hardy Society Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2, June 2005 "Efron (literature, SUNY Buffalo) offers a fresh, intensely personal reading of Thomas Hardy's Tess. Adopting a linear, sequential approach, the author focuses his explication on character, pragmatist aesthetics, drawn notably from John Dewey's Art as Experience, provide the theoretical framework for the author's carefully wrought interpretations. ... Efron's study is clear and conversational..." in: Book News, February 2005 "There is much in [this book] that can make for often interesting reading and sometimes rewarding reading. Efron is at his most useful, I think, in his discussions of major critical cruxes in the novel ...there is, also, the exceptional breadth of the many critical and cultural interconnections it makes. ....And there is too, the humane clarity with which this book is written and the author's full engagement with his subject." in: English Literature in Transition 48:3 (2005)

Edition details

• Publisher: Editions Rodopi B.V.
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9042016949
• ISBN 13: 9789042016941
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 265