TTC - From Plato to Postmodernism

Out of the Ivory Tower If these critics' theories about poetry seem somewhat convoluted and dense with jargon, this trend has only accelerated with the rise of Postmodernism. Can Structuralism, Poststructuralism, Historicism, and Deconstructionism really offer us a satisfying account of poetry's importance? Actually, these ideas are exciting, challenging, and very much part of the conversation that began in ancient Greece so long ago. But for most readers, their fruits remain out of reach behind a wall of proprietary language, leaving the layman locked out. This is why Dr. Louis Markos's approach to these theories is so valuable. As he tackles these intricate and labyrinthine theories of language, one of his primary goals is to define and explicate the often esoteric terminology associated with modern and postmodern theory. When the veil is lifted, you'll find that the postmodernists are really continuing the conversation that Plato started millennia ago, and attempting to answer the same questions. If poetry, and language itself, is purposeful, then what are its ends? And if it has meaning, then by what means? 1. Thinking Theoretically 2. Plato—Kicking out the Poets 3. Aristotle's Poetics—Mimesis and Plot 4. Aristotle's Poetics—Character and Catharsis 5. Horace's Ars Poetica 6. Longinus on the Sublime 7. Sidney's "Apology for Poetry" 8. Dryden, Pope, and Decorum 9. Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful 10. Kant's Critique of Judgment 11. Schiller on Aesthetics 12. Hegel and the Journey of the Idea 13. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and British Romanticism 14. Mr. Wordsworth's "Preface" 15. Coleridge—Transcendental Philosopher 16. Shelley's Defense of Poetry 17. The Function of Criticism—Matthew Arnold and T.S. Eliot 18. The Status of Poetry—I.A. Richards and John Crowe Ransom 19. Heresies and Fallacies—W.K. Wimsatt and Cleanth Brooks 20. Archetypal Theory—Saint Paul to Northrop Frye 21. Origins of Modernism 22. Structuralism—Ferdinand de Saussure to Michel Foucault 23. Jacques Derrida on Deconstruction 24. Varieties of Post-modernism