Logical Fictions in Medieval Literature and Philosophy

Virginie Greene

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781107068742
• eBook ISBN: 9781316191392
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, new ways of storytelling and inventing fictions appeared in the French-speaking areas of Europe. This new art still influences our global culture of fiction. Virginie Greene explores the relationship between fiction and the development of neo-Aristotelian logic during this period through a close examination of seminal literary and philosophical texts by major medieval authors, such as Anselm of Canterbury, Abélard, and Chrétien de Troyes. This study of Old French logical fictions encourages a broader theoretical reflection about fiction as a universal human trait and a defining element of the history of Western philosophy and literature. Additional close readings of classical Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, and modern analytic philosophy including the work of Bertrand Russell and Rudolf Carnap, demonstrate peculiar traits of Western rationalism and expose its ambivalent relationship to fiction.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I Logical fables
• Part II Figures of contradiction
• Part III Fathers, sons, and friends
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index