Allegory and Ideology by Fredric Jameson

Allegory and Ideology by Fredric Jameson

This major new work by Fredric Jameson is not a book about "method", but it does propose a dialectic capable of holding together in one breath the heterogeneities that reflect our biological individualities, our submersion in collective history and class struggle, and our alienation to a disembodied new world of information and abstraction. Eschewing the arid secularities of philosophy, Walter Benjamin once recommended the alternative of the rich figurality of an older theology; in that spirit we here return to the antiquated Ptolemaic systems of ancient allegory and its multiple levels (a proposal first sketched out in The Political Unconscious); it is tested against the epic complexities of the overtly allegorical works of Dante, Spenser and the Goethe of Faust II, as well as symphonic form in music, and the structure of the novel, postmodern as well as Third-World: about which a notorious essay on National Allegory is here reprinted with a theoretical commentary; and an allegorical history of emotion is meanwhile rehearsed from its contemporary, geopolitical context.

Praise for The Antinomies of Realism: Manifestly displays Jameson's many virtues as a truly great critic.. It is not always easy to read the work of someone who just won't sit on his laurels: but in this case it is worth it. -- Robert Eaglestone * Times Higher Education *
Praise for The Antinomies of Realism: Admirable ... Jameson thinks dialectically in the strong sense, in the way we are all supposed to think but almost no one does. -- Michael Wood * London Review of Books *
Praise for Valences of the Dialectic: A genuinely monumental work that I expect to be referring to for many years. -- Mark Fisher
Praise for Raymond Chandler: The Detections of Totality: Jameson, now 82, has long been the most alluring American literary theorist, the only one to match the French in style and depth. This bravura book stems from a long engagement - we might say obsession - with Chandler; what had been a footnote 30 years ago now unfolds with full force. Jameson makes every strand of Chandler's oeuvre glisten with significance. -- Angela Woodward * Los Angeles Review of Books *
Praise for Postmodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism: Fredric Jameson is America's leading Marxist critic. A prodigiously energetic thinker whose writings sweep majestically from Sophocles to science fiction. -- Terry Eagleton * Irish Times *
Praise for Postmodernism: For anybody hoping to understand not just the cultural but the political and social implications of postmodernism . Jameson's book is a fundamental, nonpareil text. * Sunday Times *
Praise for Postmodernism: The scope and profundity of Postmodernism, covering theory, architecture, film, video and economics, is truly staggering . Brilliant. * Independent *
Praise for The Hegel Variations: Yields a series of audacious reading of a 'non-teleological' Hegel, throwing a distinctive light on such themes as master-slave dialectic, linguistic subjectivity, expressive production ('the animal kingdom of spirit'), normative division in the Antigone (inaugurating chapter 6, 'Spirit'), and the French Revolution. * Choice *
Praise for The Hegel Variations: Jameson establishes the revisionist nature of his latest study from the very outset. For a work on a Hegel it is a conspicuously short but nonetheless fascinating work, one which encompasses all of the elliptical nuances, digressions and expansive inter-disciplinary scholarship which has characterized his past studies. * Glasgow Review of Books *
Praise for The Antinomies of Realism: This latest installment in his epic 'poetics of social form' is vintage Jameson: no other critic has his range of reference in literature and theory, and no one dialecticizes their connections to politics and history with anything like his transformative energy. Not since Auerbach has 'realism' been so penetratingly analyzed or so radically rethought. With many surprises along the way - such as the new centrality Jameson affords 'affect' in the realist novel - the results are absolutely stunning. -- Hal Foster, Princeton University
Praise for The Hegel Variations: Variations shows how tenaciously Jameson wrestles with his angel to complicate further his relationship to Hegelian Marxism. -- Peter Hitchcock * Meditations *
Praise for Valences of the Dialectic: A profound contribution to dialectical thought. * Meditations *
Praise for Late Marxism: Adorno, Or, The Persistence of the Dialectic: The most philosophically sophisticated and searching study of Theodor Adorno to appear in English ... powerful and persuasive. * The Nation *
Praise for Postmodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism: The scope and profundity of Postmodernism, covering theory, architecture, film, video and economics, is truly staggering.Brilliant. * Independent *
Praise for Postmodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism: For anybody hoping to understand not just the cultural but the political and social implications of postmodernism.Jameson's book is a fundamental, nonparaeil text. * Sunday Times *

Fredric Jameson is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at Duke University. The author of numerous books, he has over the last three decades developed a richly nuanced vision of Western culture's relation to political economy. He was a recipient of the 2008 Holberg International Memorial Prize. He is the author of many books, including Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, The Cultural Turn, A Singular Modernity, The Modernist Papers, Archaeologies of the Future, Brecht and Method, Ideologies of Theory, Valences of the Dialectic, The Hegel Variations and Representing Capital.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781788730259
ISBN 10	1788730259
Title	Allegory and Ideology
Author	Fredric Jameson
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Verso Books
Year published	2019-05-07
Number of pages	432
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.