Why do we value literature so? Many would say for the experience it brings us. But what is it about that experience that makes us treasure certain writings above others? Stephen Booth suggests that the greatest appeal of our most valued works may be that they are, in one way or another, nonsensical. He uses three disparate texts--the Gettysburg Address, Ben Jonson's epitaphs on his children, and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night --to demonstrate how poetics triumphs over logic in the invigorating mental activity that enriches ...
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Why do we value literature so? Many would say for the experience it brings us. But what is it about that experience that makes us treasure certain writings above others? Stephen Booth suggests that the greatest appeal of our most valued works may be that they are, in one way or another, nonsensical. He uses three disparate texts--the Gettysburg Address, Ben Jonson's epitaphs on his children, and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night --to demonstrate how poetics triumphs over logic in the invigorating mental activity that enriches our experience of reading. Booth presents his case in a book that is crisply playful while at the same time thoroughly analytical. He demonstrates the lapses in logic and the irrational connections in examples of very different types of literature, showing how they come close to incoherence yet maintain for the reader a reliable order and purpose. Ultimately, Booth argues, literature gives us the capacity to cope effortlessly with, and even to transcend, the complicated and demanding mental experiences it generates for us. This book is in part a witty critique of the trends--old and new--of literary criticism, written by an accomplished and gifted scholar. But it is also a testimony to the power of the process of reading itself. Precious Nonsense is certain to bring pleasure to anyone interested in language and its beguiling possibilities.
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Seller's Description:
Fine in Fine jacket. Book Not ex-lib. Hardcover in black cloth, in orange and black jacket, 8vo. xii + 218pp. + colophon. Footnotes throughout, index. Fine/Fine. Book and jacket are as new: clean, tight, square and unmarked with strongly colored jacket in Brodart.
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Seller's Description:
Like New. Hardcover and dust jacket. Good binding and cover. Minor shelf wear. Clean, unmarked pages. XII, 218 p.; 23 cm. "Booth highlights the linguistic complications, illogical assertions, and incongruous imagery that distinguish, but enrich, disparate texts: the Gettysburg Address, poetic epitaphs by Ben Jonson on his children, and Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", Booth argues that the illogic, irrationality, and incongruity (or "nonsense") in literature, which the mind tends to elide into superficial understanding, are really the most meaningful cruxes of the text."
