The Economy of Literature

Why did coinage, tyranny, and philosophy develop in the same time and place? Marc Shell explores how both money and language give "worth" by providing a medium of exchange, how the development of money led to a revolution in philosophical thought and language, and how words transform mere commodities into symbols at once aesthetic and practical. Offering carefully documented interpretations of texts from Heraclitus, Herodotus, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, and Ruskin, Shell demonstrates the kinship between literary and economic theory and production, introduces new methods of analyzing texts, and shows how literary and philosophical fictions can help us understand the world in which we live.

Author: Marc Shell
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 09/01/1993
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.62lbs
Size: 8.89h x 6.01w x 0.46d
ISBN: 9780801846946

About the Author
Shell, Marc: - Marc Shell is professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the author of The Economy of Literature and Money, Language, and Thought, also available from Johns Hopkins .