Resisting Representation brings together some of the most provocative essays by leading scholar Elaine Scarry. Through her readings of texts by Hardy, Beckett, Boethius, Thackeray, and others, Scarry examines the ability of language to accommodate conceptions of truth and cognition and also analyses phenomena such as physical pain and physical labour whose materiality might exclude them form reflexes of language.

Renowned scholar Elaine Scarry celebrates language as she deals with the complicated problems of representation in diverse and cultural genres--from her beloved sixth-century philosopher Boethius through the 19th-century novel to 20th-century advertising.

Scarry's thesis evokes instant recognition (`I should have thought of that!'), and her readings of Hardy, Beckett, Thackeray, and Boethius are elegant and convincing. Resisting Representation made me see in a new way not only the works Scarry discusses, but also other literature; for a book of criticism, I can think of no higher praise.