The Visionary Moment - A Postmodern Critique

Explores and critiques the metaphysics and ideology of the visionary moment as a convention in twentieth-century American fiction, from the standpoint of postmodernism.
In The Visionary Moment, Paul Maltby draws on postmodern theory to examine the metaphysics and ideology of the visionary moment, or "epiphany," in twentieth-century American fiction. Engaging critically with the works of Don DeLillo, Jack Kerouac, Saul Bellow, Flannery O'Connor, Alice Walker, and William Faulkner, Maltby explains how the literary convention of the visionary moment promotes the myth that there is a superior level of knowledge that can redeem or regenerate the individual. He contends that this common-sense assumption is a paradigm that needs to be confronted and critiqued.

About the author

Paul Maltby is Associate Professor of English at West Chester University. He is the author of Dissident Postmodernists: Barthelme, Coover, Pynchon.

Product details

• Authors: Paul Maltby
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 11.04.2002
• EAN: 9780791454138
• ISBN: 978-0-7914-5413-8
• No. of pages: 188
• Dimensions: 153 mm x 229 mm x 10 mm
• Weight: 372 g
• Series: Suny Postmodern Culture; SUNY series in Postmodern Culture
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies