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'In Plato's Republic, Socrates spoke of an 'ancient quarrel between literature and philosophy' which he offered to resolve once and for all by banning the poets from his ideal city. Few philosophers have taken Socrates at his word, and out of the ancient quarrel there has emerged a long tradition that has sought to value literature chiefly as a useful supplement to philosophical reasoning. The fiction of J.M. Coetzee makes a striking challenge to this tradition. While his writing has frequently engaged philosophical subjects in explicit ways, it has done so with an emphasis on the dissonance between literary expression and philosophical reasoning. And while Coetzee has often overtly engaged with academic literary theory, his fiction has done so in a way that has tended to disorient rather than affirm those same theories, wrong-footing the normal processes of literary interpretation.
'This volume brings together philosophers and literary theorists to reflect upon the challenge Coetzee has made to their respective disciplines, and to the disciplinary distinctions at stake in the ancient quarrel. The essays use his fiction to explore questions about the boundaries between literature, philosophy, and literary criticism; the relationship between literature, theology, and post-secularism; the particular ways in which literature engages reality; how literature interacts with the philosophies of language, action, subjectivity, and ethics; and the institutions that govern the distinctions between literature and philosophy. It will be of importance not only to readers of Coetzee, but to anyone interested in the ancient quarrel itself.' (Publication summary)
Contents
- Ancient Quarrels, Modern Contexts : An Introduction, single work criticism
- Health and Deviance, Irony and Incarnation : Embedding and Embodying Philosophy and Theology in The Childhood of Jesus, single work criticism
- Attuning Philosophy and Literary Criticism : A Response to In the Heart of the Country, single work criticism
- Double Thoughts : Coetzee and the Philosophy of Literary Criticism, single work criticism
- 'Good Paragraphing. Unusual Content' : On the Making and Unmaking of Novelistic Worlds, single work criticism
- 'A Yes Without a No' : Philosophical Reason and the Ethics of Conversion in Coetzee's Fiction, single work criticism
- Coetzee and Eros : A Critque of Moral Philosophy, single work criticism
- Coetzee's Quest for Reality, single work criticism
- Beyond Realism : Coetzee's Post-Secular Imagination, single work criticism
- Coetzee's Critique of Language, single work criticism
- Coetzee and Psychoanalysis : From Paranoia to Aporia, single work criticism
- 'Wisselbare Woorde' : J. M. Coetzee and Postcolonial Philosophy, single work criticism
- The J. M. Coetzee Archive and the Archive in J. M. Coetzee, single work criticism
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Ways of Speaking and Living : A Philosophical Look at J.M. Coetzee
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 410 2019; (p. 26-27)'Beyond the Ancient Quarrel: Literature, philosophy and J.M. Coetzee is a new collection of essays on J.M. Coetzee, perhaps the most important author of imaginative literature in the world today. Unifying the diverse strands of argument animating this thoughtful volume, the book’s editors, noted Coetzee scholars Patrick Hayes and Jan Wilm, link the aims of the collection to the ‘ancient quarrel’ between philosophy and literature in Greek antiquity. In their view, Coetzee’s writing can be taken not only to re-examine this quarrel and the way it was settled (in favour of philosophy and against literature in Plato’s Republic), but also, and more importantly, to break with the uneasy truce that has been deemed to govern intellectual life ever since.' (Introduction)
-
Ancient Quarrels, Modern Contexts : An Introduction
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Beyond the Ancient Quarrel : Literature, Philosophy, and J.M. Coetzee 2018;
-
Ways of Speaking and Living : A Philosophical Look at J.M. Coetzee
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 410 2019; (p. 26-27)'Beyond the Ancient Quarrel: Literature, philosophy and J.M. Coetzee is a new collection of essays on J.M. Coetzee, perhaps the most important author of imaginative literature in the world today. Unifying the diverse strands of argument animating this thoughtful volume, the book’s editors, noted Coetzee scholars Patrick Hayes and Jan Wilm, link the aims of the collection to the ‘ancient quarrel’ between philosophy and literature in Greek antiquity. In their view, Coetzee’s writing can be taken not only to re-examine this quarrel and the way it was settled (in favour of philosophy and against literature in Plato’s Republic), but also, and more importantly, to break with the uneasy truce that has been deemed to govern intellectual life ever since.' (Introduction)
-
Ancient Quarrels, Modern Contexts : An Introduction
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Beyond the Ancient Quarrel : Literature, Philosophy, and J.M. Coetzee 2018;