Cultural Memory: Essays on European Literature and History

‘Memory’ and ‘culture’ are terms which have reached a state of high fashion, if not over-use, but they need careful handling. This introduction attempts to track their use in contemporary critical discourse, and then to relate their significance to literary and historical output; every essay in this volume shares this preoccupation, but addresses it within the specific brief of a ‘local’ context. Our concern here is to map the surrounding
theoretical terrain.