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Power and Literature

Strategies of Subversiveness in the Romanian Novel

Authors: Florin Oprescu Publisher: De Gruyter Publication date: 2018 Publication language: Angielski Number of pages: 276 Publication formats: EAN: 9783110605372 ISBN: 9783110605372 Category: Literature: history & criticism Literary theory Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers Social & political philosophy Publisher's index: - Bibliographic note: -

Description

At the core of this book lies the relation between Power (as socio-political phenomenon) and the novel (as literary discourse). It shows that, in a society facing the excess of power in its various forms, novelistic fiction mediates knowledge about societal Power structures and uses specific strategies to subvert and denounce them.

The first part of the study is theoretical: it presents some of the most prominent theories of Power, from Plato, Machiavelli, Nietzsche to Weber, Dahl, Lukes, Parsons, Bourdieu or Foucault. After offering a critical approach to the concepts of Power defined in the social, political and philosophical fields, it articulates the relations of Power imprinted in literary discourse within a typology of four categories.

In the second part of the book, this taxonomy of Power is applied to four key novels in the context of Romanian "literary crossroads", showing how novelistic fiction not only assume a critical and subversive position against the excess of Power, but also unveils our fragility when experiencing History.

TOC

  • Contents 6
  • Argument 8
  • 1. The Criticism of Ideas on Power 15
  • 2. The Active Power of the Subject 65
  • 3. The Reflexive Power of the Subject 115
  • 4. The Passivity of the Subject faced with the Power of History 169
  • 5. The Impersonalization of Power in Contemporary Novel 205
  • Conclusions 252
  • Bibliography 259
  • Index 271