The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Literature contains twenty-three newly commissioned essays by major philosophers and literary scholars that investigate literature as a form of attention to human life. Various forms of attention are considered under the headings of Genres (from Ancient Epic to the Novel and Contemporary Experimental Writing), Periods (from Realism and Romanticism to Postcolonialism), Devices and Powers (Imagination, Plot, Character, Style, and Emotion), and Contexts and Uses (in relation to inquiry, morality, and politics). In each case, the effort is to track and evaluate how specific modes and works of imaginative literature answer to important needs of human subjects for orientation, the articulation of interest in life, and the working through of emotion, within situations that are both sociohistorical and human. Hence these essays show how and why literature matters in manifold ways in and for human cultural life, and they show how philosophers and imaginative literary writers have continually both engaged with and criticized each other.

Contributors
Introduction--Philosophy and Literature as Forms of Attention
Richard Eldridge
Part I. Genres
1. Epic
Gregory Nagy
2. Lyric
Susan Stewart
3. Tragedy
J. M. Bernstein
4. Comedy
Timothy Gould
5. Pastoral
Mark Payne
6. Satire
R. Bracht Branham
7. The Novel
Anthony J. Cascardi
8. Autobiography and Biography
Stephen Mulhall

9. Experimental Writing
R. M. Berry
Part II. Periods and Modes
10. Realism
Bernard Harrison
11. Romanticism
Nikolas Kompridis
12. Idealism
Toril Moi
13. Modernism
Philip Weinstein
14. Postcolonialism
Simona Bertacco
Part III. Devices and Powers
15. Imagination
Kirk Pillow
16. Plot
Alan Singer
17. Character
Stanley Bates
18. Style
Charles Altieri
19. Emotion, Memory, and Trauma
Glenn W. Most
Part IV. Contexts and Uses
20. Literature and Knowledge
John Gibson
21. Literature and Morality:
Ted Cohen
22. Literature and Politics
Fred Rush
Index

Richard Eldridge is Professor of Philosophy at Swarthmore College.