Beginnings: Intentions and Method

Beginnings: Intentions and Method

by Michael Wood (Introduction), Michael Wood (Introduction), Michael Wood (Introduction), Edward W. Said (Author)

Synopsis

A beginning, especially as embodied in much modern thought, is its own method, Edward Said argues in this classic treatise on the role of the intellectual and the goal of criticism. Distinguishing between origin, which is divine, mythical, and privileged, and beginning, which is secular and humanly produced, Said traces the ramifications and diverse understandings of the concept of beginning through history. A beginning is a first step in the intentional production of meaning and the production of difference from preexisting traditions. It authorizes subsequent texts -- it both enables them and limits what is acceptable. Drawing on the insights of Vico, Valery, Nietzsche, Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Husserl, and Foucault, Said recognizes the novel as the major attempt in Western literary culture to give beginnings an authorizing function in experience, art, and knowledge. Scholarship should see itself as a beginning -- as a uniting of theory and practice. Said's insistence on a criticism that is humane and socially responsible is what makes Beginnings is a book about much more than writing: it is about imagination and action as well as the constraints on freedom and invention that come from human intention and the method of its fulfillment.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 448
Edition: 1
Publisher: Granta Books
Published: 02 Aug 2012

ISBN 10: 1847085997
ISBN 13: 9781847085993
Book Overview: Edward Said's classic treatise on the role of the intellectual and the goal of criticism, which encompasses the great thinkers and writers of the last 200 years.

Author Bio
Edward Said was Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and the author of eighteen books. Out of Place and The End of the Peace Process, Said's prescient critique of the Oslo peace accord, are both available from Granta Books. He died in September 2003.