Dialectic of the Ladder
Dialectic of the Ladder

Author: Ben Ware

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-08-27

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1472591410

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Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) remains one of the most enigmatic works of twentieth century thought. In this bold and original new study, Ben Ware argues that Wittgenstein's early masterpiece is neither an analytic treatise on language and logic, nor a quasi-mystical work seeking to communicate 'ineffable' truths. Instead, we come to understand the Tractatus by grasping it in a twofold sense: first, as a dialectical work which invites the reader to overcome certain 'illusions of thought'; and second as a modernist work whose anti-philosophical ambition is intimately tied to its radical aesthetic character. By placing the Tractatus in the force field of modernism, Dialectic of the Ladder clears the ground for a new and challenging exploration of the work's ethical dimension. It also casts new light upon the cultural, aesthetic and political significances of Wittgenstein's writing, revealing hitherto unacknowledged affinities with a host of philosophical and literary authors, including Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Adorno, Benjamin, and Kafka.

Five Faces of Modernity
Five Faces of Modernity

Author: Matei Călinescu

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 9780822307679

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Five Faces of Modernity is a series of semantic and cultural biographies of words that have taken on special significance in the last century and a half or so: modernity, avant-garde, decadence, kitsch, and postmodernism. The concept of modernity--the notion that we, the living, are different and somehow superior to our predecessors and that our civilization is likely to be succeeded by one even superior to ours--is a relatively recent Western invention and one whose time may already have passed, if we believe its postmodern challengers. Calinescu documents the rise of cultural modernity and, in tracing the shifting senses of the five terms under scrutiny, illustrates the intricate value judgments, conflicting orientations, and intellectual paradoxes to which it has given rise. Five Faces of Modernity attempts to do for the foundations of the modernist critical lexicon what earlier terminological studies have done for such complex categories as classicism, baroque, romanticism, realism, or symbolism and thereby fill a gap in literary scholarship. On another, more ambitious level, Calinescu deals at length with the larger issues, dilemmas, ideological tensions, and perplexities brought about by the assertion of modernity.

Introduction to Medio-Translatology
Introduction to Medio-Translatology

Author: Xie Tianzhen

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-07-20

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9819912687

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This book offers a comprehensive introduction to medio-translatology, including its historical and literary setting, its core concept, and its practice and theory. Medio-translatology, inspired by scholarship in comparative literature and the “cultural turn” in Western translation studies, has tackled many issues which previously went unnoticed or were ignored in traditional translation studies in China; it falls within the scope of literary studies and cultural studies, extending beyond the confines of language and treating literary translations and translating as historical facts. Emerging from comparative literature, medio-translatology looks at literary translation from a new and broader perspective, and explains, with illustrative and compelling examples, that literary translation is “an act of creative treason.” The originality of this approach is also evident in its distinguishing between the history of translated literature and the history of literary translation, as well as in its addressing the nature and status of translated literature. The Chinese edition of this book, being the first of its kind and well received in China, has been hailed as a milestone in exploring translation studies in the context of comparative literature in Chinese academia, and it introduces to students and researchers alike a wide range of new thoughts and ideas.