Interpret or Describe
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5038744 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Cannon Schmitt (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 135 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 102-118 |
| Publication date | 2016-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Representations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0734-6018 • E-ISSN: 1533-855X |
| Publisher | University of California Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1525/rep.2016.135.1.102 |
| OpenAlex | W2487676015 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
In "Narrate or Describe?" (1936), Georg Lukács codified the aesthetic superiority of narration to description. Current debates around descriptive approaches in literary studies reprise this binary in a critical register, valorizing interpretation over description (or, less frequently, vice versa). Beginning with a reconsideration of Lukács's essay, I propose the inevitable interdependence of interpretation and description. Brief readings of technical language in Cormac McCarthy's The Road (2006) and intertextuality in Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother? (2012) exemplify that interdependence
Art · Binary opposition · Epistemology · Intertextuality · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · History · Literature and Cultural Memory · Modern American Literature Studies · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.38 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2023 (6) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |