Abstract
The conclusion recapitulates the book’s main intervention and argument by outlining the evolution of Said’s conceptions of literature and agency and asserting that the ‘the authority of literary criticism’ lies in Said’s conceptualization of literature as the expression of human experience, and agency as human will. Having discussed that Said pioneered to turn literary criticism into a form of political intervention in the interests of liberation, emancipation, and social justice, I conclude this book by addressing the startling paradox of Said’s critical practice. Despite having criticized the sanguinary aspects of humanism’s past, in raising itself as a paragon for human freedom against all forms of imperialism, Said appeals to an idealized, authoritative version of humanism.
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Vandeviver, N. (2019). Conclusion. In: Edward Said and the Authority of Literary Criticism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27351-4_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27351-4_6
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