Forms
First published 2015 · 192 pages · about 3 hours to read
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About this book
"Forms offers a powerful new answer to one of the most pressing problems facing literary, critical, and cultural studies today--how to connect form to political, social, and historical context. Caroline Levine argues that forms organize not only works of art but also political life--and our attempts to know both art and politics. Inescapable and frequently troubling, forms shape every aspect of our experience. But forms don't impose their order in any simple way. Multiple shapes, patterns, and arrangements, overlapping and colliding, generate complex and unpredictable social landscapes that challenge and unsettle conventional analytic models in literary and cultural studies. Borrowing the concept of "affordances" from design theory, this book investigates the specific ways that four major forms--wholes, rhythms, hierarchies, and networks--have structured culture, politics, and scholarly knowledge across periods, and it proposes exciting new ways of linking formalism to historicism and literature to politics. Levine rereads both formalist and antiformalist theorists, including Cleanth Brooks, Michel Foucault, Jacques Rancière, Mary Poovey, and Judith Butler, and she offers engaging accounts of a wide range of objects, from medieval convents and modern theme parks to Sophocles's Antigone and the television series The Wire.
Will you like it?
Written for students and scholars of literature, culture and politics who want to connect close reading with social history. Its key idea, that wholes, rhythms, hierarchies and networks organize both texts and political life, is illustrated with examples from Sophocles, medieval convents and the television series The Wire.
- form and politics
- affordances
- overlapping structures
- close reading
- social patterns
Written with AI.
Books like Forms
The Well Wrought Urn
Cleanth Brooksabout 5 hours to read
A classic formalist account of unity, paradox and close reading that Levine rereads and revises.
The Political Unconscious
Fredric Jamesonabout 5 hours to read
A major attempt to connect literary form to historical and political context, the problem Levine addresses.
Politics Of Aesthetics
Jacques Ranciereabout 2 hours to read
Examines how aesthetic forms organize what can be seen, said and shared in political life.
A History of the Modern Fact
Mary Pooveyabout 7 hours to read
Traces how forms of writing and classification shaped knowledge and social order, a study Levine engages directly.
More
Graphs, Maps, Trees
Franco Morettiabout 2 hours to read
Uses abstract models such as maps and trees to read literature at scale, a related attempt to see pattern across works.
Reassembling the Social
Bruno Latourabout 5 hours to read
Describes social life as networks of connections among people and things, close to Levine's view of networks.
Marxism and Literature
Raymond Williamsabout 4 hours to read
Considers how literary forms and cultural practices relate to social and material conditions.
Touching Feeling
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwickabout 3 hours to read
Offers a critical method that moves between close reading and attention to affect and the social world.
The Limits of Critique
Rita Felskiabout 4 hours to read
Questions the habits of suspicious reading and asks what other modes of attention criticism might use.
Quick answers
- What age is Forms for?
- Adults.
- Is Forms a standalone?
- Yes, it stands on its own.
- Does Forms have violence, sex or strong language?
- Nothing a reader needs warning about.
Written with AI from what's known about the book.
Reader's guide
Themesform and context, affordances, wholes and boundaries, rhythm and repetition, hierarchy and power, networks, formalism and historicism
form and context · affordances · wholes and boundaries · rhythm and repetition · hierarchy and power · networks · formalism and historicism
StyleAcademic prose written for literary scholars and advanced readers, with clear chapter-length arguments, frequent examples from literature, politics and popular culture, and sustained engagement with other critics. The language is more direct than much theory, and the structure moves from the four forms to their interactions.
Academic prose written for literary scholars and advanced readers, with clear chapter-length arguments, frequent examples from literature, politics and popular culture, and sustained engagement with other critics. The language is more direct than much theory, and the structure moves from the four forms to their interactions.
How it was writtenCaroline Levine is a literary critic and Victorianist. Forms was published by Princeton University Press in 2015. It emerged from debates about the return to form in literary studies, and it draws on earlier formalist and antiformalist theory as well as design theory.
Caroline Levine is a literary critic and Victorianist. Forms was published by Princeton University Press in 2015. It emerged from debates about the return to form in literary studies, and it draws on earlier formalist and antiformalist theory as well as design theory.
How it was receivedForms was widely discussed in literary studies after its publication and is often cited in discussions of the so-called new formalism. Readers have praised its concept of affordances and its flexible account of overlapping social patterns, and some critics have questioned how far the framework can account for power and conflict.
Forms was widely discussed in literary studies after its publication and is often cited in discussions of the so-called new formalism. Readers have praised its concept of affordances and its flexible account of overlapping social patterns, and some critics have questioned how far the framework can account for power and conflict.
Questions to discussWhat does Levine gain by describing social structures as forms, and what might the word form hide?
These may talk about the whole book.
- What does Levine gain by describing social structures as forms, and what might the word form hide?
- How does the idea of affordances, borrowed from design theory, change the way we think about what a text can do?
- Which of the four forms, wholes, rhythms, hierarchies and networks, seems most useful for reading a novel or poem you know, and why?
- Levine argues that forms collide and overlap. Can you think of an example from your own life where two forms conflict?
- How well does Levine's approach answer the older split between close reading and historical criticism?
- Do you think the book's examples, from medieval convents to television, support its argument equally well?
Written with AI from what's known about the book.
More by Caroline Levine
- Activist HumanistActivist Humanist2023
- BicimlerBicimler2017
- Narrative MiddlesNarrative Middles2015
- Provoking DemocracyProvoking Democracy2008
- David's Secret Soccer GoalsDavid's Secret Soccer Goals2004
Parts of this page are written with AI from what's known about the book, and can get details wrong. How BookSense works