This book discusses the full sweep of the work of J. Hillis Miller, a great critic and theorist, from his earliest writing to his death in 2021 on poetry, fiction, drama, fiction, non-fiction - and Miller's preference for close and careful reading of individual literary and critical works over abstract theory.

Jonathan Locke Hart received his PhD in English from the University of Toronto and a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. Dr Hart is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Member of Academia Europea, and is Chair Professor, the School of Translation Studies and Director, International Cooperation Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies and Digital Humanities, Shandong University. He is also Fellow, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Victoria College, University of Toronto; Associate, Harvard University Herbaria; Senior Fellow, Abigail Adams Institute; and Life Member, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. In recent years, he was Core Faculty, Comparative Literature, Western University and Chair Professor of the School of Foreign Languages and Director of the Centre for Creative Writing, Literary Culture and Translation, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He has written more than 20 books and edited others and contributed book chapters. A winner of many international awards, including two Fulbrights to Harvard, and having served on national and international committees, including Fulbright and Killam, Dr Hart has written over 100 articles and essays and has held visiting appointments at Harvard, Cambridge, Princeton, the Sorbonne-Nouvelle (Paris III), Leiden, UC Irvine and elsewhere and has given classes, talks, readings and lectures internationally.

1. Introduction: J. Hillis Miller and the Play of Literature

2. Literature

3. Theory

4. Poetry

5. Poetry, Poetics and Reading: A Dialogue

6. Fiction

7. Narrative

8. Deconstruction and Beyond

9. Art, Culture, Media and the World

10. Innocence and Experience

11. Literature, Philosophy, History and Ecology

12. Conclusion

Index