Temporalities

Book excerpt: Temporalities presents a concise critical introduction to the treatment of time throughout literature. Russell West-Pavlov examines time as a crucial part of the critical theories of Newton, Freud, Ricoeur, Benjamin, and through related concepts, such as psychology, gender and postmodernism. The author also explores representations of time in a broad range of texts, ranging from the writings of St. Augustine and Sterne's Tristram Shandy, to Woolf's Mrs Dalloway and Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. This comprehensive and accessible guide establishes temporality as an essential theme within literary and cultural studies.