J Hillis Miller Fiction Novels: Speech Acts sku-48727525

J Hillis Miller's Speech Acts in Literature, sku-48727525, is a hardcover listed under Fiction Novels in the Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics series. It examines literature's place in speech act theory and uses that theory to read literary works. The opening chapter considers how J. L.

Austin's How to Do Things with Words excludes literature from felicitous speech acts while relying on literary references, imaginary stories and dialogues. It also describes Austin's account as a failed attempt at a complete theory, or a "bogging down."

The next chapters discuss Jacques Derrida's concept of "iterability," under which any speech act may be literature, and Paul de Man's distinction between the cognitive and positing dimensions of language, which Austin calls "constative" and "performative." Both thinkers develop speech act theories concerned with responsible, effective politico-ethical decisions and action.

A later chapter considers strong emotion in effective speech acts through Derrida, Wittgenstein and Austin. The final chapter applies speech act theory to close readings of three passages in Proust.