The contemporary problem of style. Issue 4 (3rd April 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Robinson, Richard; Sheils, Barry
• Is Part Of: Textual practice. Volume 36:Issue 4(2022)
• Page Start: 473
• Page End: 500
• Publication Date: 2022-04-03
• Subjects: New formalism -- new aestheticism -- modernism -- weird English -- stylistics -- post-critique -- shame; Literature, Modern -- 20th century -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Criticism -- Periodicals; Criticism, Textual -- Periodicals; Semiotics -- Periodicals; 801.95
• DOI: 10.1080/0950236X.2022.2030510
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0950-236X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This essay sets the parameters of this special issue on the contemporary problem of style. Noting that the critical term style has returned to discursive prominence in recent years, the introduction explores the peculiarity of its status in literary studies. Asking how style underlies our critical practice today, we track the partially conflicting genealogies of style and the variety of its disciplinary relations. We explore the problem of style now: in its modernist inheritances; its association to class and nationality, especially Englishness; its reconfiguration through world Englishes and the global novel; its coupling with new aestheticism and new formalism; its recasting as a problem of receptivity and attachment in the era of 'post-critique'; its intimate connection to shame, affect and embodiment (given especial impetus by critical race theory and sexuality studies); and its persistent association with subcultures and the scandalous pleasures of 'lifestyle'.