Ethics, Theory and the Novel [Hardcover]

In Ethics, Theory and the Novel, David Parker brings together recent developments in moral philosophy and literary theory.The virtual suppression of explicit ethical and evaluative discourse by current literary theory can be seen as the momentary triumph of a sceptical post Enlightenment reflective tradition over others vital to a full account of human and literary worth. In Ethics, Theory and the Novel, David Parker brings together recent developments in moral philosophy and literary theory.The virtual suppression of explicit ethical and evaluative discourse by current literary theory can be seen as the momentary triumph of a sceptical post Enlightenment reflective tradition over others vital to a full account of human and literary worth. In Ethics, Theory and the Novel, David Parker brings together recent developments in moral philosophy and literary theory.The virtual suppression of ethical and evaluative discourse by current literary theory can be seen as the triumph of one post-Enlightenment tradition over others vital to a full account of humanity and literary value. In Ethics, Theory and the Novel David Parker shows that current silences about ethics are as damaging as the earlier political silences of Leavisism and New Criticism. He goes on to examine Middlemarch, Anna Karenina, and novels by D.H. Lawrence, exploring the consequences for major literary works of the suppression of ethical traditions.Part I. The Ethical Unconscious: 1. Evaluative discourse: the return of the repressed; 2. A new turn toward the ethical; 3. The judgmental unconscious; 4. The libidinal unconscious; 5. Dynamic interrelatedness: or, the novel walking away with the nail; Part II. Social Beings and Innocents: 6. 'Bound in Charity': Middlemarch; 7. Forgetting and disorientation in Anna Karenina; 8. Two ideas of innocence in The white peacock; 9. Into the ideological unknown: Women in love; 10. Lawrence and Lady Chatterley: the teller and the tale; Part III. Towards a new evaluative Dlc,