{"product_id":"decomposing-figures","title":"Decomposing Figures","description":"\u003cp\u003eOriginally published in 1986. The ghastly fate of a drowned man brought to a lake's surface in Wordsworth's \"Prelude\" typifies a fundamental pattern in Romantic writing, argues Cynthia Chase. Disfiguration involves not only a departure from representation but a disruption of the logic of figure or form, a decomposition of the figures composing the text. Ultimately it manifests the conflict between a work's meaning and its mode of performance. By means of an intense engagement with texts in the romantic tradition, \u003ci\u003eDecomposing Figures\u003c\/i\u003e rearticulates and recasts crucial concepts in recent literary theory, including the notion of the self-referential or self-reflexive nature of the literary work. Chase's readings show that, far from implying a privileged status, the work's self-reflexive structure entails its opacity, its inability to read itself, and the necessity of its decomposition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Johns Hopkins University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54226419024216,"sku":"9781421434094","price":45.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9781421434094_16cbf1d4-c8bb-4083-84d5-dceca8d1b041.jpg?v=1764327628","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/decomposing-figures","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}