The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology

by Wolfgang Iser

Overview

The pioneer of "literary anthropology," Wolfgang Iser presents a wide-ranging and comprehensive exploration of this new field in an attempt to explain the human need for the "particular form of make-believe" known as literature. Ranging from the Renaissance pastoral to Coleridge to Sartre and Beckett, The Fictive and the Imaginary is a distinguished work of scholarship from one of Europe's most respected and influential critics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801844997
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	03/01/1993
Pages:	380
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.84(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Wolfgang Iser, who has taught at leading universities in the United States and Europe, is currently professor of English and comparative literature at the University of Constance.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

A new book by Wolfgang Iser is an important event in the critical world. This one, with its wide-ranging and ambitious argument, will require the attention of everyone who thinks seriously and at all philosophically about literary culture and what it has to tell us about being human.
—Ross Chambers, University of Michigan

Ross Chambers

A new book by Wolfgang Iser is an important event in the critical world. This one, with its wide-ranging and ambitious argument, will require the attention of everyone who thinks seriously and at all philosophically about literary culture and what it has to tell us about being human.

Editorial Reviews

Iser is an influential figure, and aficionados will welcome the comprehensive exposition he provides here.
--Terence Cave, Times Literary Supplement

Superb in its analysis of many scholarly sources.
--Carole J. Lambert, Southern Humanities Review

From the Publisher

Iser is an influential figure, and aficionados will welcome the comprehensive exposition he provides here.

— Terence Cave

Times Literary Supplement

Superb in its analysis of many scholarly sources.

— Carole J. Lambert

Southern Humanities Review

Iser is an influential figure, and aficionados will welcome the comprehensive exposition he provides here.

Times Literary Supplement - Terence Cave

Superb in its analysis of many scholarly sources.

Southern Humanities Review - Carole J. Lambert

In this deep and difficult work originally published in German as Das Fiktive und das Imaginare (1991), Iser develops a form of heuristics for human self-interpretation through literature, a heuristics linked to those human dispositions that are also constituents of literature, namely the fictive and the imaginary. Paper edition (unseen), $15.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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