Detaining Time: Temporal Resistance in Literature from Shakespeare to McEwan

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Detaining Time is the first book to investigate the representation of time in literature in terms of the project to reconceptualize time, so that its movement no longer threatens security. Focusing on the nature, consequences, and resolution of resistance to temporal passage, Eric P. Levy offers detailed and probing close readings, enriched by thorough yet engaging explication and application of prominent philosophical theories of time. Philosophy is here employed not as a rigid model to which literature is forced to conform, but instead as a lens through which elements crucial to the literary texts can be isolated and clarified, even as they concern ideas different from those expounded in philosophy. The literary texts treated include Hamlet, Hard Times, Ulysses, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, a wide range of Beckettian works, and Enduring Love texts distinguished by their challenging, relentless, original, and dramatic depiction of the struggle with temporality. The philosophies of time covered include those of Aristotle, Kant, Bergson, John McTaggart, C.D. Broad, Edmund Husserl and Gilles Deleuze.

Reviews

A masterful work of scholarship, with its painstaking attention to detail and its close reading of texts. Unlike many works of literary criticism, Levys book does not rely on vague abstractions or generalities. He guides the reader step by step through each authors reasoning ... to analyze the consciousness of time. I was captivated by this tour de force ... Levys book stands on its own as a work of insightful literary criticism. It constitutes a substantial contribution to literature. It will be of help to students and professors alike. Overall, it is a clear piece of writing, well argued, systematic, and compelling. * Literature & Aesthetics *
An ambitious book and along the way are insights worth reflecting on and debating. * University of Toronto Quarterly *
There is much to commend in this book, and the readings of individual texts would be of interest to anyone studying or writing on them specifically, or on the literary application of theories of time. * Forum for Modern Language Studies *

Author Bio

Eric P. Levy is Associate Professor Emeritus at The University of British Columbia, Canada. He is the author of Beckett and the Voice of Species: A Study of the Prose Fiction (1980), Trapped in Thought: A Study of the Beckettian Mentality (2007) and Hamlet and the Rethinking of Man (2008). He has also published 55 articles in various areas of literary criticism, and garnered 25 republications.