Expressivism: The Vicissitudes of a Theory in the Writing of Proust and Barthes (Legenda/Research Monographs in French Studies, 6) - Softcover

Gratton, Johnnie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1900755262 ISBN 13: 9781900755269

Publisher: Routledge, 2000

Synopsis

This book is a study of modern expressivism, understood as a body of thought committed to upholding the notion of art as `expression'. Gratton opens with a wide-ranging critical survey of modern expressivist theories, adducing certain recurrent elements that constitute these theories and others that threaten them. Expressivist discourses tend to wobble, but so too do anti-expressivist discourses, and in subsequent chapters Proust and Barthes are shown to be unable - or reluctant - to steer a straight course. In Proust, the movement of textualisation radically unsettles the `official' aesthetic programme a A la recherche du temps perdu , while in Barthes the move from a firmly anti-expressivist discourse to a more personalised writing manner unexpectedly allows a version of expressivism to gain a foothold in the postmodern context.

About this title

About the Author:

Johnnie Gratton is Head of the Department of French at University College, Dublin. He has also written on surrealism, modern fiction and autobiography.

Review:

Refreshing... This book is a must for graduates coming new to this debate and to these authors, and for the wider reader it is an engaging and polished addition to an excellent series. (Timothy Mathews French Studies, LVI.3, 2002, 421-2)

Gratton’s conclusion is that we should remember that words have matted, contradictory histories, to guard ourselves against believing wholeheartedly in unmediated expression... Repays attentive reading. (Ingrid Wassenaar Fabula)

Nel corso della sua attenta analisi. (Antonella Arrigoni Studi Francesi, XLVI, 2002, 2)

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1900755262
• ISBN 13: 9781900755269
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 134