This volume in the Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series focuses on the main themes and topics in the philosophy of literature. It is composed of all newly commissioned essays, written by the top scholars in the field. Note: I received a lot of advice on this project over several iterations.

Notes on Contributors viii

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1
Garry L. Hagberg and Walter Jost

Part I Relations between Philosophy and Literature 5

1 Philosophy as Literature and More than Literature 7
Richard Shusterman

2 Philosophy and Literature: Friends of the Earth? 22
Roger A. Shiner

3 Philosophy and Literature – and Rhetoric: Adventures in Polytopia 38
Walter Jost

4 Philosophy and/as/of Literature 52
Arthur C. Danto

Part II Emotional Engagement and the Experience of Reading 69

5 Emotion and the Understanding of Narrative 71
Jenefer Robinson

6 Feeling Fictions 93
Roger Scruton

7 The Experience of Reading 106
Peter Kivy

8 Self-Defining Reading: Literature and the Constitution of Personhood 120
Garry L. Hagberg

Part III Philosophy, Tragedy, and Literary Form 159

9 Tragedy and Philosophy 161
Anthony J. Cascardi

10 Iago’s Elenchus: Shakespeare, Othello, and the Platonic Inheritance 174
M. W. Rowe

11 Catharsis 193
Jonathan Lear

12 Passion, Counter-Passion, Catharsis: Flaubert (and Beckett) on Feeling Nothing 218
Joshua Landy

Part IV Literature and the Moral Life 239

13 Perceptive Equilibrium: Literary Theory and Ethical Theory 241
Martha C. Nussbaum

14 Henry James, Moral Philosophers, Moralism 268
Cora Diamond

15 Literature and the Idea of Morality 285
Eileen John

16 Styles of Self-Absorption 300
Daniel Brudney

Part V Narrative and the Question of Literary Truth 329

17 Narration, Imitation, and Point of View 331
Gregory Currie

18 How and What We Can Learn from Fiction 350
Mitchell Green

19 Literature and Truth 367
Peter Lamarque

20 Truth in Poetry: Particulars and Universals 385
Richard Eldridge

Part VI Intention and Biography in Criticism 399

21 Authorial Intention and the Varieties of Intentionalism 401
Paisley Livingston

22 Art as Techne, or, The Intentional Fallacy and the Unfinished Project of Formalism 420
Henry Staten

23 Biography in Literary Criticism 436
Stein Haugom Olsen

24 Getting Inside Heisenberg’s Head 453
Ray Monk

Part VII On Literary Language 465

25 Wittgenstein and Literary Language 467
Jon Cook and Rupert Read

26 Exemplification and Expression 491
Charles Altieri

27 At Play in the Fields of Metaphor 507
Ted Cohen

28 Macbeth Appalled 521
Stanley Cavell

Index 541

This diverse collection of essays represents the most recent critical thinking concerning the philosophical study of literature. Contributed by an international team of eminent scholars drawn from the fields of both literature and philosophy, the great majority of essays are newly commissioned for this volume, supplemented by a few indispensable works of recent scholarship. All are rich in literary examples and analytical precision. For ease of course use, the essays are helpfully grouped within the major subdivisions of the field, among them “Relations Between Philosophy and Literature,” “Emotional Engagement and the Experience of Reading,” “Literature and the Moral Life,” and “Literary Language.”

By bringing together such an extraordinary collection of influential and thought-provoking essays, A Companion to the Philosophy of Literature reveals the deep and expansive nature of philosophical and literary studies – and the inextricable bonds they share.

"In its richness, variety, learning, and consistent balance, this volume, which assembles some of the great names in the field, along with brilliant younger critics like Joshua Landy and Rupert Read, will serve as a cornerstone for anyone interested in the inextricability of philosophy and literature. Indeed, the various branches of philosophy, especially ethics and epistemology, emerge as indispensable for an understanding of major literary texts from Shakespeare to Stevens."
—Marjorie Perloff, author of Wittgenstein's Ladder

"In the 1980s, English-speaking philosophers began taking a renewed systematic interest in literature, not so much to determine what sort of thing literature might be as to understand philosophy itself in relation to such things as narrative, tragedy, and literary language. This comprehensive volume brings together lively discussion and debate on the most important work that has been done in this area. A true and faithful companion indeed."
—Gerald Bruns, Notre Dame University

Notes on Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Relations between Philosophy and Literature Part II: Emotional Engagement and the Experience of Reading Part III: Philosophy, Tragedy, and Literary Form Part IV: Literature and the Moral Life Part V: Narrative and the Question of Literary Truth Part VI: Intention and Biography in Criticism Part VII: On Literary Language Index