Beginnings: Intention and Method

Said, Edward W.; Edward W. Said (Author)

ISBN 10: 0465005802 / ISBN 13: 9780465005802

Published by Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, New York, 1975

About this Item

414 pp. Solidly bound copy with moderate external wear, crisp pages and clean text. No dj. Slight indent/damage to fore edge.

Seller Inventory # 4iBg0031

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Beginnings: Intention and Method
• Publisher: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, New York
• Publication Date: 1975
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465005802
• ISBN 13: 9780465005802
• Binding: Hardcover Canvas
• Illustrator: Vincent Torre (Design)
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • Middle & Near Eastern Studies, History & Culture
  • Literary Studies, Literary Theory & Lit. Criticsm
  • Academic, Scholarly, Research

About this title

Synopsis

A "beginning," especially as embodied in much modern thought, is its own method, Edward Said argues in this classic treatise on the role of the intellectual and the goal of criticism. Distinguishing between "origin," which is divine, mythical, and privileged, and "beginning," which is secular and humanly produced, Said traces the ramifications and diverse understandings of the concept of beginning through history. A beginning is a first step in the intentional production of meaning and the production of difference from preexisting traditions. It authorizes subsequent texts -- it both enables them and limits what is acceptable.

Drawing on the insights of Vico, Valery, Nietzsche, Saussure, Lévi-Strauss, Husserl, and Foucault, Said recognizes the novel as the major attempt in Western literary culture to give beginnings an authorizing function in experience, art, and knowledge. Scholarship should see itself as a beginning -- as a uniting of theory and practice. Said's insistence on a criticism that is humane and socially responsible is what makes Beginnings a book about much more than writing: it is about imagination and action as well as the constraints on freedom and invention that come from human intention and the method of its fulfillment.

Book Description

This reissued classic traces the ramifications and diverse understandings of the concept of "beginning" in history and offers valuable insights into the role of the intellectual and the goal of criticism.