Kafka's castle and the critical imagination

Stephen D. Dowden

Kafka's final, unfinished novel The Castle remains one of the most celebrated yet most stubbornly uninterpretable masterpieces of modernist fiction. Consequently it has been a lightning rod for theories and methods of literary criticism. In this chronological study of its fate at the hands of academic and non-academic critics, S. D. Dowden lays emphasis on the acts of critical imagination that have shaped our image and understanding of Kafka and his novel. He explores the historical and cultural contingencies of criticism: from the Weimar Era of Max Brod and Walter Benjamin to Lionel Trilling's Cold War to the postmodern moment of multiculturalism and its turn to "cultural studies.". Dowden shows how and why The Castle became a contested site in the imaginative life of each succeeding generation of criticism. In addition, he accounts for those moments at which Kafka's novel escapes,...

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