Review by Choice Review
This phenomenological inquiry begins with some interesting questions: Why care about the effect of fictional characters on those who encounter them? Or about the images in pictorial works? One sometimes treats fictional works as if they were real, demonstrating that the merely fictional and the actually real do not have the clear distinctions one might have thought. More importantly, contends Paskow (St. Mary's College, Maryland), insights into people's relationships with fictional persons and situations in art and literature deepen an understanding of how human beings relate to the world. After some basic historical considerations and a thorough account of epistemology and ontology from a phenomenological standpoint, the author offers a remedy to what he sees as the distortion of aesthetic analysis resulting from certain 20th-century methodological prejudices. By extending the work of Husserl and Heidegger, he does what he suggests scientifically minded analysts cannot do, i.e., render a precise description of experience from the standpoint of oneself. By the unique application of the phenomenological notion of being-in-the-world, he is able to expand and clarify people's understanding of the situations in which transactions with art take place, thus shedding light on questions of interpretation, artistic ambiguity, aesthetic attitude, and the definition of artworks. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. R. M. Davis Albion College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
