Title: Reconstructing literature in an ideological age
First published: 1996
Description: While many literary scholars consider feminism, deconstruction, and multiculturalism new avenues to truth, other readers find that such prior ideological commitments distort literature. In Reconstructing Literature in an Ideological Age, Daniel E.

Ritchie offers a "biblical poetics" as an alternative approach to ideological criticism, exploring how the Bible's own negotiations with language affect our view of literature, specifically with respect to older texts, gender issues, ethnic diversity, and the apparent arbitrariness of language itself.

Focusing here on Restoration and eighteenth-century literature, Ritchie examines how a biblical poetics provides a basis for literary study in the texts of Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, John Milton, Edmund Burke, and Alexander Pope, and he contrasts it to recent ideological approaches to these texts. Ritchie's biblical treatment of particular literary issues provides the basis for original historical research or literary interpretation often sharply at odds with current critical theories.
Subjects: Bible, Christian literature, English, Christianity and literature, English Christian literature, English literature, History, History and criticism, Intellectual life, Language, style, Poetics, Religion and literature, Theory, Style, Histoire, Literatur, Religion, Histoire et critique, Religion et litterature, Litterature chretienne anglaise, Bibel, Christianisme et litterature, Geschichte 1660-1800, Litterature anglaise, Theorie, English literature, history and criticism, early modern, 1500-1700, English literature, history and criticism, 18th century, Christian literature
Places: Great Britain
Time periods: 17th century, 18th century, Early modern, 1500-1700
LC classification: PR438.R45 R58 1996