{"title":"《浪漫主义与书信》,马德琳·卡拉汉和安东尼·豪主编(评论)","authors":"M. Waters","doi":"10.1353/bio.2022.0021","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"is like the present, although the past always appears a pale imitation, and this implied linearity can seem like an unyielding march forward in time. What if earlier narrative forms are not imperfect articulations of the future but expressive of a distinct vision of reality and thus of life writing? In other words, what if medieval life writing was experimental on its own terms? My questions mean that I would have liked the book to demonstrate a more complex choreography between the past and present, which would have complemented Winstead’s insistence upon genre instability in lifewriting modes, regardless of time period. Still, this book is part of a series that aims to survey bodies of literature defined by literary time periods, which necessarily constrains Winstead’s arguments. More than once, for instance, she observes that the twelfth century proves a pivotal century when life writing transforms in one way or another, yet she does not explain why such transformations occur in that century as that is beyond the book’s purview. A survey, after all, observes, yet it does not necessarily explain what it details. In that sense, Winstead’s book is importantly productive: she opens lines of thinking about the literary history of life writing that invite readers to explore more, to pick up a line of thought and develop it. She ultimately has crafted a highly readable book that not only demonstrates the range of life writing during the long Middle Ages but also activates challenging and constructive questions about genre and its social role.","PeriodicalId":45158,"journal":{"name":"BIOGRAPHY-AN INTERDISCIPLINARY QUARTERLY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Romanticism and the Letter, ed. by Madeleine Callaghan and Anthony Howe (review)\",\"authors\":\"M. Waters\",\"doi\":\"10.1353/bio.2022.0021\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"is like the present, although the past always appears a pale imitation, and this implied linearity can seem like an unyielding march forward in time. What if earlier narrative forms are not imperfect articulations of the future but expressive of a distinct vision of reality and thus of life writing? In other words, what if medieval life writing was experimental on its own terms? My questions mean that I would have liked the book to demonstrate a more complex choreography between the past and present, which would have complemented Winstead’s insistence upon genre instability in lifewriting modes, regardless of time period. Still, this book is part of a series that aims to survey bodies of literature defined by literary time periods, which necessarily constrains Winstead’s arguments. More than once, for instance, she observes that the twelfth century proves a pivotal century when life writing transforms in one way or another, yet she does not explain why such transformations occur in that century as that is beyond the book’s purview. A survey, after all, observes, yet it does not necessarily explain what it details. In that sense, Winstead’s book is importantly productive: she opens lines of thinking about the literary history of life writing that invite readers to explore more, to pick up a line of thought and develop it. She ultimately has crafted a highly readable book that not only demonstrates the range of life writing during the long Middle Ages but also activates challenging and constructive questions about genre and its social role.\",\"PeriodicalId\":45158,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"BIOGRAPHY-AN INTERDISCIPLINARY QUARTERLY\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.3000,\"publicationDate\":\"2022-11-04\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"BIOGRAPHY-AN INTERDISCIPLINARY QUARTERLY\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2022.0021\",\"RegionNum\":4,\"RegionCategory\":\"文学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"0\",\"JCRName\":\"LITERATURE\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"BIOGRAPHY-AN INTERDISCIPLINARY QUARTERLY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2022.0021","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE","Score":null,"Total":0}
Romanticism and the Letter, ed. by Madeleine Callaghan and Anthony Howe (review)
is like the present, although the past always appears a pale imitation, and this implied linearity can seem like an unyielding march forward in time. What if earlier narrative forms are not imperfect articulations of the future but expressive of a distinct vision of reality and thus of life writing? In other words, what if medieval life writing was experimental on its own terms? My questions mean that I would have liked the book to demonstrate a more complex choreography between the past and present, which would have complemented Winstead’s insistence upon genre instability in lifewriting modes, regardless of time period. Still, this book is part of a series that aims to survey bodies of literature defined by literary time periods, which necessarily constrains Winstead’s arguments. More than once, for instance, she observes that the twelfth century proves a pivotal century when life writing transforms in one way or another, yet she does not explain why such transformations occur in that century as that is beyond the book’s purview. A survey, after all, observes, yet it does not necessarily explain what it details. In that sense, Winstead’s book is importantly productive: she opens lines of thinking about the literary history of life writing that invite readers to explore more, to pick up a line of thought and develop it. She ultimately has crafted a highly readable book that not only demonstrates the range of life writing during the long Middle Ages but also activates challenging and constructive questions about genre and its social role.