ELT & Literary Studies Books

Book SynopsisMorrison brings her genius to this personal inquiry into the significance of African-Americans in the American literary imagination. Through her investigation of black characters, narrative strategies, and idiom in the fiction of white American writers, Morrison provides a perspective sure to alter conventional notions about American literature.Trade ReviewThis is a major work by a major American author… It is an exuberant exercise, conducted by a writer in her prime who knows that her own work makes steady inroads on the unspeakable. -- Diane Middlebrook * Los Angeles Times *In Playing in the Dark, Morrison explores how the temptation to enslave others instead of embracing freedom has shaded our national literature, and how an acceptance of this truth will enable us to see that literature’s struggles and fears, and so better understand its exuberance… Her wisdom is to locate strength in what appears to be weakness. -- Jane Mendelsohn * Voice Literary Supplement *In this beautifully written, immensely quotable study, Morrison attempts to overturn pervasive critical agendas that ignore racial representations in white texts and thus impoverish literary studies… Morrison’s interest is not to designate texts as ‘racist’ but to read the ways that the ‘racial’ operates. -- Linda Krumholz * Signs *Morrison’s delivery of the distinguished Massey lectures at Harvard in 1990 showed off her prowess as critic, for she brings the indomitable spirit of her fiction to her feelings about literature. In Playing in the Dark, the published lectures, Morrison argues that a black, or Africanist, presence exists throughout the history of American literature, and its understanding is essential to any body of criticism. Identifying what she calls ‘the rhetoric of dread and desire,’ then tracing its manifestations through works by Poe, Cather and Hemingway, Morrison believes that to ignore the presence of race in literature is to rob fiction of its power… But the most telling test of any critical argument, at least for those of us who prefer passion to theory, is whether such speculation will send you back to primary sources. By the time I’d finished Playing in the Dark, the floor around me was littered with Huck Finn and James Baldwin and Faulkner. -- Gail Caldwell * Boston Globe *In three compact and skillful essays, Morrison explores and illumines the gaggle of literary devices—conceits, tropes, metaphors—that have been mostly unconsciously deployed by white writers to refract the rays of blackness through the prism of literary silence, repression or avoidance. Morrison ably applies her therapeutic textual intervention to make these rays visible and to imaginatively envision how an Africanist presence was essential in forming and extending an American national literature… [This is her] impressive debut as a critical intellectual. -- Michael Eric Dyson * Chicago Tribune *A brief and compelling dissection of U.S. fiction. -- Paul Skenazy * San Francisco Chronicle *[Her] thesis is an engaging one, and it becomes more so in a sequence of a few compressed but inspired readings of American works, Cather’s Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not, and Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. -- Mark Edmundson * Washington Post Book World *Table of Contents1. black matters 2. romancing the shadow 3. disturbing nurses and the kindness of sharks

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe once influential theory Neoanalysis held that motifs and episodes in the Iliad derive from the Aethiopis. Given its vast potential implications for the Iliad’s origins, the recent revival of Neoanalysis in subtler form inspires this critical reappraisal by Malcolm Davies of that theory’s more sophisticated reincarnation.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book provides a stimulating account of the dominant cultural forms of 1950s America: fiction and poetry; theatre and performance; film and television; music and radio; and the visual arts. Through detailed commentary and focused case studies of influential texts and events - from Invisible Man to West Side Story, from Disneyland to the Seattle World''s Fair, from Rear Window to The Americans - the book examines the way in which modernism and the cold war offer two frames of reference for understanding the trajectory of postwar culture. The two core aims of this volume are to chart the changing complexion of American culture in the years following World War II and to provide readers with a critical investigation of ''the 1950s''. The book provides an intellectual context for approaching 1950s American culture and considers the historical impact of the decade on recent social and cultural developments.Trade ReviewThe 1950s has been transformed in the scholarly literature from a "tranquillized" decade to an almost "tumultuous" one, and therefore is badly in need of a restorative balance. This is the achievement of Martin Halliwell's superb account of a postwar period that, for all of its familiarity, remains tantalizingly elusive. By showing the persistence of the varieties of cultural modernism, he advances the retrospective understanding of a decade that was not merely the lengthened shadow of the Cold War. His book is thoughtful, expansive and engaging. -- Stephen J. Whitfield, Professor of American Studies, Brandeis University, Massachusetts The author has a good command of the variety of cultural forms in the period and has planned the shape and contents of the book thoughtfully. -- Professor Lucy Maddox, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. The 1950s has been transformed in the scholarly literature from a "tranquillized" decade to an almost "tumultuous" one, and therefore is badly in need of a restorative balance. This is the achievement of Martin Halliwell's superb account of a postwar period that, for all of its familiarity, remains tantalizingly elusive. By showing the persistence of the varieties of cultural modernism, he advances the retrospective understanding of a decade that was not merely the lengthened shadow of the Cold War. His book is thoughtful, expansive and engaging. The author has a good command of the variety of cultural forms in the period and has planned the shape and contents of the book thoughtfully.Table of ContentsAmerican Culture in the 1950s; Martin Halliwell; Contents;; Illustrations; Case Studies; Acknowledgements; Chronology of 1950s American Culture; Introduction: The Intellectual Context; 1. Fiction and Poetry; 2. Drama and Performance; 3. Music and Radio; 4. Film and Television; 5. The Visual Arts beyond Modernism; Conclusion: Rethinking the 1950s; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisTable of ContentsRemerciements Présentation Liste des abréviations I. Un grand homme de province à Paris (1689-1773) Introduction: Piron, un Voltaire provisoire 1. Années dijonaises (1689-1719) 2. Prologue parisien (1719-1727)3. Melpomène et Thalie (1727-1745) 4. La difficile condition d'auteur 5. Le Bourguignon, un type de lettré au dix-huitième siècle 6. Heurs et malheurs 'd'un ouvrier dramatique' (1745-1754) 7. 'Adieux de M. Piron aux Muses' (1754-1773) 8. Un indifférent railleur II. Etude de l'œuvre Introduction 9. Piron, versificateur 10. Piron épistolier et chroniqueur de la vie parisienne 11. Piron, auteur dramatique: l'Opéra-Comique et la petite comédie en vaudevilles 12. Piron, auteur dramatique: le Théâtre-Français Post-face Annexe: répertoires des écrits pironiens Bibliographie Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisGore Vidal''s reputation as America''s finest essayist is an enduring one. This collection, chosen by the author from 40 years of work, contains about two-thirds of what he published in various magazines and journals. He has divided the essays into three categories, or states. State of the art covers literature, including novelists and critics, bestsellers, pieces on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Suetonius, Nabakov and Montaigne (a previosly uncollected essay from 1992). State of the union deals with politics and public life: sex, drugs, money, Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, The Holy Family (his essay on the Kennedys), Nixon, and finally Monotheism and its Discontents , a scathing critique of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In state of being, we are given personal responses to people and events: recollections of his childhood, E. Nesbit, Tarzan, Tennessee Williams and Anais Nin.Trade ReviewMagnificent...irresistable from beginning to end. * THE TIMES *All the Vidals are on display in this glittering showcase... Long may he continue to nip and bite at the flanks of the corrupt, the powerful, the moronic and the self-serving. * GUARDIAN *The arc and span of Vidal's erudition and intelligence are prodigious... for forty years it has been Vidal's vocation to restore a witty and classically literate sense of memory and historical continuity to a country he calls "Amnesia" * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY *Vidal is the outstanding literary radical of America. * Melvyn Bragg *

Read more less

Book SynopsisAnne Carson was born in Canada and has been a professor of Classics for over thirty years. Her awards and honours include the T. S. Eliot Prize, a Lannan Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Griffin Prize, on two occasions, fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, and the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature 2020.Trade ReviewLike all of Anne Carson's writing, this book is amazing - I haven't discovered any writing in years that's so marvellously disturbing. I just feel so happy that she's around -- Alice MunroHer work is full of moments of startling originality and beauty. The poems play with character and plot, myth and magic; they are rich with attitude and wit and the undertow of grief. If she was a prose writer she would instantly be recognised as a genius -- Colm Tóibín * Times Literary Supplement *Anne Carson has created, from fragments of the Greek poet Stesichoros, a profound love story...forty-seven compulsively readable long-lined poems of intense cinematic detail. Carson writes in language any poet would kill for: sensuous and funny, poignant, musical and tender, brilliantly lighted -- Ruth Padel * New York Times Book Review *Anne Carson is a daring, learned, unsettling writer. Autobiography of Red, which perhaps comes closest to representing the range of her voice and gifts, is a spellbinding achievement -- Susan Sontag

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe puppet creates delight and fear. It may evoke the innocent play of childhood, or become a tool of ritual magic, able to negotiate with ghosts and gods. In this book, the author contemplates the fascination of these unsettling objects - objects that are also actors and images of life.Trade Review"No one better illustrates the evolution of academic literary criticism into poetry than Kenneth Gross.... He dreams and muses, offering endless insights into the strange and archaic world of puppets, inanimate things breathed to life. This is a book of literary mysticism, rich with accrued culture yet never weighed down by it." (New York Times) "You have in your hands a uniquely beautiful book, a book of uncommon brilliance and lucidity. It is as wondrous as the theaters of marvels it describes; its leaps and mutabilities provide a thrilling adventure in imaginative thinking. 'How are we devoured by the things we make?' it asks. 'And when might that devouring save us?' My copy burns brightly on my favorite shelf, beside The Poetics of Space, Eccentric Spaces, and In Praise of Shadows.... A treasure!" (Rikki Ducornet, author of Netsuke and The Fan-Maker's Inquisition)"

Read more less

Book SynopsisBy the author of THE HANDMAID''S TALE and ALIAS GRACEWhat is the role of the writer? Prophet? High Priest of Art? Court Jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her own childhood and the development of her writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain - or excuse! - their activities, looking at what costumes they have seen fit to assume, what roles they have chosen to play. In her final chapter she takes up the challenge of the book''s title: if a writer is to be seen as ''gifted'', who is doing the giving and what are the terms of the gift?Margaret Atwood''s wide and eclectic reference to other writers, living and dead, is balanced by anecdotes from her own experiences as a writer, both in Canada and on the international scene. The lightness of her touch is underlined by a seriousness about the purpose and the pleasures of writing, and by a deep familiarity with the mTrade ReviewAtwood's wonderful collection of lectures isn't so much advice on how to write as it is a series of ruminations on the deeper problems and joys of being a writer, such as what moral debt we may owe the reader. She calls on past great writers like helpful friends for their adivce -- Lesley McDowell * Sunday Herald *As one of literature's luminaries, surely Margaret Atwood possesses a magical secret we can truffle out? It's an absorbing book, which you read with pleasure and benefit...'On Writers and Writing,' is frequently hilarious * The Independent *Juggling well worn subjects which "get murky or pretentious", this is a streetwise, erudite suggestive enquiry into problems and myths of the writer's role. Her light touch on hard thoughts, her humour and eclectic quotations, lend enchantment to an argument that has as many undulating tentacles as a well developed sea anemone * Independent *Her witty, occasionally self-depracating and always ingenious approach is a delight * Sunday Times *A witty and profound rumination about writing * The Times *A playful, informed and briskly sensible discussion of the writing life * Sunday Telegraph *'an absorbing book, which you read with pleasure and benefit... the sense of an agile mind revolving sophisticated ideas' -- Stevie Davies * Independent *

Read more less

Book SynopsisMacabre and melodramatic, set in haunted castles or fantastic landscapes, Gothic tales became fashionable in the late eighteenth century with the publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764). Crammed with catastrophe, terror, and ghostly interventions, the novel was an immediate success, and influenced numerous followers. These include William Beckford's Vathek (1786), which alternates grotesque comedy with scenes of exoticmagnificence in the story of the ruthless Caliph Vathek's journey to damnation. The Monk (1796), by Matthew Lewis, is a violent tale of ambition, murder, and incest, set in the sinister monastery of the Capuchins in Madrid. Frankenstein (1818, 1831) is Mary Shelley's disturbing and perennially popular tale of young studentwho learns the secret of giving life to a creature made from human relics, with horrific consequences.This collection illustrates the range and the attraction of the Gothic novel. Extreme and sensational, each of the four printed

Read more less

Book SynopsisIntroducing the English-language audience to the work of one of France’s leading contemporary dramatists—winner of seven Molières, the Pulitzer Prize of France—these plays offer vivid insights into French Jewish life in post-Holocaust Europe.Trade ReviewAll three plays in this volume are infused by the tragedy of the broken family, and Grumberg masterfully deploys comedy in his dialogue as a way of dealing with tragic memories that defy expression. Grumberg effectively invented the genre of post-war French Jewish theatre, fusing the French language and the Jewish experience in a strange and innovative way, and giving voice to a French Jewish identity that goes beyond the traditional Republican prescription. -- Natasha Lehrer * Times Literary Supplement *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Three French Jewish Plays of Jean-Claude Grumberg: A Theatre of Memory and Accommodation Jean-Claude Grumberg: A Timeline of Key Works and Life Events The Plays The Workplace On the Way to the Promised Land: A Dental Tragedy Mama’s Coming Back, Poor Orphan An Interview with Jean-Claude Grumberg Selected Bibliography

Read more less

Book SynopsisA work of technical skill as well as outstanding literary merit, Structuralist Poetics was awarded the 1975 James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association. It was during the writing of this book that Culler developed his now famous and remarkably complex theory of poetics and narrative, and while never a populariser he nonetheless makes it crystal clear within these pages.Trade Review''The brilliance, precision and clarity with which Dr Culler conducts his argument make this a book which all those concerned with the analysis of literature should read.' - A.S. Byatt'The brilliance, precision and clarity with which Dr Culler conducts his argument make this a book which all those concerned with the analysis of literature should read.' - A.S. Byatt, Times Education SupplementTable of ContentsPART I Structuralism and Linguistic Models 1 The Linguistic Foundation 2 The Development of a Method: Two Examples 3 Jakobson’s Poetic Analyses 4 Greimas and Structural Semantics 5 Linguistic Metaphors in Criticism PART II Poetics 6 Literary Competence 7 Convention and Naturalization 8 Poetics of the Lyric 9 Poetics of the Novel PART III Perspectives 10 ‘Beyond’ Structuralism: Tel Quel 11 Conclusion: Structuralism and the Qualities of Literature

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Routledge new edition of this classic book functions as an accessible introduction to the historical and theoretical exchanges between film and literature and also includes the key critical readings necessary for an understanding of this increasingly vibrant and popular field of adaption studies. This new edition has been fully updated and is usefully separated into three sections: in the first section Timothy Corrigan guides readers through the history of film and literature to the present; the second section has expanded to reprint 28 key essays by leading theorists in the field including Andrà Bazin, Linda Hutcheon and Robert Stam, as well as new essays by Timothy Corrigan and William Galperin; and the third section offers hands-on strategies and advice for students writing about film and literature.Film and Literature will fill a gap for many film and literature courses and courses concentrating on the interplay between the two.The companion website features an interactive timeline, extended filmography and comprehensive bibliography, by Geoff Wright, Samford University, USA. www.routledge.com/cw/corriganTrade ReviewStriking the perfect balance between text and context, Corrigan’s volumes proves a wonderful tool for students as well as teachers. Jan Baetens, Leuven Uni, BelgiumCorrigan’s Film and Literature offers an accessible history of the contentious intellectual relationship between literature and film as well as the often symbiotic history of their industrial relations. The selected readings cover an excellent range of influential, as well as cutting-edge, approaches to the area of study, and the concluding guide to writing about Film and Literature is a welcome addition. Dr. Shelley Cobb, Southampton, UKThis text offers ‘the complete package’—containing history, theory, and praxis—for professors teaching courses in this growing field. Without a doubt, this will be the book I use for film and literature courses in the years to come.Dr. Melissa Croteau, California Baptist University, USAThe Corrigan book admirably fulfills its roles as an overview on the subject and as an anthology of theoretical positions and critical approaches. James Goodwin, University of California, USACorrigan’s lucid introduction to the phases of early cinema in respect of the intrinsic but often under-appreciated interface between literary and filmic forms of expression offers a concise, lucid and authoritative account of its genealogy and development.Mike Ingham, Lingnan University, H.K.Table of ContentsPart I: Film and Literature in the Crosscurrents of History 1. The Prehistory of Film and Literature 2. Filming Literature: From Early Cinema to Classical Form, 1895-1925 3. Testing and Expanding the Value of Film and Literature, 1915-1940 4. Pens, Pulp, and the Crisis of the Word, 1940-1960 5. Academic Cinema and International Spectacles, 1960-1980 6. Books and Movies as Multimedia, 1990 to the Present Part 2: Documents and Debates 1. Adaptation Studies 2. Adaptation in History 3. Authors and Auteurs 4. Novels, Theater, Poetry, and Non-Fiction 5. Major Writers/Major Films: On William Shakespeare’s MacBeth and Jane Austen’s Emma 6. Beyond Film and Literary Texts Part 3: Writing about Film and Literature 1. Themes, Strategies, and Elements of Style 2. Genres and Other Topics 3. Writing about Film and Literature

Read more less

Book SynopsisHuman beings have constantly told stories, presented events and placed the world into narrative form. This activity suggests a very basic way of looking at the world, yet, this book argues, even the most seemingly simple of stories is embedded in a complex network of relations. Paul Cobley traces these relations, considering the ways in which humans have employed narrative over the centuries to âre-presentâ time, space and identity.This second, revised and fully updated edition of the successful guidebook to narrative covers a range of narrative forms and their historical development from early oral and literate forms through to contemporary digital media, encompassing Hellenic and Hebraic foundations, the rise of the novel, realist representations, narratives of imperialism, modernism, cinema, postmodernism and new technologies. A final chapter reviews the way that narrative theory in the last decade has re-orientated definitions of narrative.Written in a clear, engagTable of ContentsChapter 1. In the beginning: the end Chapter 2. Early narrative Chapter 3. The rise and rise of the novel Chapter 4. Realist representation Chapter 5. Beyond realism Chapter 6. Modernism and the cinema Chapter 7. Postmodernism Chapter 8. In the end: the beginning Chapter 9. What is narrative?

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Language of Displayed Art, first published in 1994, is a seminal work in the field of Multimodality and one of the few to be entirely dedicated to the analysis and interpretation of works of art. This book explores the grammar of the visual arts of painting, sculpture and architecture, proposing that as viewers we simultaneously read three different kinds of meaning in them: what is represented (Representational meaning) how it engages us (Modal meaning) how it is composed (Compositional meaning). The second edition features: two new chapters; an extended discussion of Chapter 5 Why Semiotics; and an extended version of Chapter 7 with more illustrations of language forms, discourse norms and genres, as well as non-art visual modes. The book is now accompanied by a CD, created by the author and features a virtual gallery of twenty-eight additional paintings with questions to encourage analysis and interpretaTrade Review'Occasionally a book comes along which takes over your whole field of attention and resets the way you look at some aspect of experience. For me "The Language of Displayed Art" was one such book. It opened up the world of painting, architecture and sculpture, bringing out its dimensions and depth of meaning and adding significantly to my understanding- and therefore to my enjoyment- of familiar and not so familiar works of art.' M.A.K. Halliday, Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, University of Sydney, Australia 'My favourite bedtime reading beautifully restored and given a new lease of life... this new colour edition with supporting CD-ROM has at last given this timeless masterpiece of art criticism the limelight it has long deserved. A cultural treasure trove for new acquaintances, for old fans the return of a sorely-missed truly multimodal companion.' Anthony Baldry, University of Messina, Italy Table of Contents1. Semiotics At Work 2. Bodily Perceptions: A Semiotics of Sculpture 3. A Semiotics of Architecture 4. Semiotics Across the Arts

Read more less

Book SynopsisWillcock provides a line-by-line commentary that explains allusions and Homeric conventions that a student or general reader could not be expected to bring to an initial encounter with the Iliad.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisDavid Mamet was born in Chicago in 1947. He studied at Goddard College, Vermont - later becoming Art ist in Residence - and at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre in New York. His first and ma ny subsequent plays were first performed by the St Nicholas Theatre company, Chicago, of which he wa s a founding member and Artistic Director. In 1978 he became Associate Artistic Director of the Good man Theatre, Chicago, where American Buffalo had been first staged in 1975, subsequently winning an Obie Award and opening on Broadway in 1977 and at the National Theatre in 1978. His greatest hits, G lengarry Glen Ross and Oleanna followed in 1983 and 1993 respectively.Trade Review'David Mamet has a miraculous ear for the heightened music of American dialect - it makes poetry out of common usage' New York Post; The Cryptogram: 'Here is the finest American playwright of his generation at full stretch. The writing is tight, spare, and as accurate and ruthless as a scalpel' Sunday Times; Oleanna: 'An exploration of male-female conflicts [which] cogently demonstrates that when free thought and dialogue are imperilled, nobody wins' Independent The Old Neighborhood: 'Mamet, ranked with Miller, Albee and Shepard as America's finest living playwrights, distills the raw, rank flavour of people wading down streams of consciousness... A play of riveting disquiet' Evening StandardTable of ContentsCrytogram; Oleanna; the Old Neighborhood

Read more less

Book SynopsisA masterpiece of Russian drama, now in a student editionTrade ReviewIt is the element of might-have-been in Chekhov's characters that makes their sense of waste so tragic ... I know of no more moving climax in world drama. * Guardian *Michael Frayn has left his signature upon our contemporary enjoyment of Chekhov...this Uncle Vanya possesses all the scrupulous, subtly idiomatic life we have come to expect from his hand, allied with - and this is the true mark of Frayn - a fine sense of Chekhovian complexity. * Spectator *

Read more less

Book SynopsisTest Your English Vocabulary in Use Upper-intermediate Second edition contains 100 easy-to-use practice vocabulary tests with a clear marking system on each page so that progress can be easily checked. The book can be used on its own, for self-study or in the classroom, or to reinforce the vocabulary covered in English Vocabulary in Use Upper-intermediate Third edition, available separately.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe text is unabridged, with original spelling and extensive, easy-to-use marginal glosses and footnotes.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis new annotated edition inlcudes "Live Oak, with Moss" and prose selections from "Democratic Vistas" and "Specimen Days". The text also presents a collection of Whitman's statements about his role as a poet taken from his notebooks, letters, conversations and newspaper articles.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis Norton Critical Edition of the world’s first major work of literary criticism is based on James Hutton’s acclaimed translation. The text and explanatory and glossarial notes represent the work of the accomplished Hellenists James Hutton and Michelle

Read more less

Book Synopsis"A deeply beautiful book, with the fierce galloping pace of a great novel."—Liz Rosenberg Boston GlobeTrade Review"The love in this book is tangible and redemptive." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune"Her verse is almost unornamented though she manages some great gift of will and expression to convey the sharpest feeling in long, graceful lines that seem to breathe on the page.... Despite the fathomless pain inherent in these poems, Howe never succumbs to sentimentality or self-pity; her tone is passionate yet detached, her vocabulary and imagery evocative, appropriate, and devastating." -- Memphis Commercial Appeal"Howe is a truth-teller of the first order. Fearless in presenting unfiltered experiences, she interweaves her simple, economical language into long, subordinated sentences, loose, enjambed couplets that spill compellingly down the page with near-invisible artistry." -- Providence Sunday Journal"Marie Howe's poetry is luminous, intense, eloquent, rooted in abundant inner life." -- Stanley Kunitz"Marie Howe has reinvented the elegy as a poem for the living, a poem of instruction, how we're educated by grief. Scrupulously attentive, rigorously self-questioning, What the Living Do is an achievement of remarkable power." -- Mark Doty"The tentative transformation of agonizing, slow-motion loss into redemption is Howe's signal achievement in this wrenching second collection, which uncovers new potential for the personal poem." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review

Read more less

Book SynopsisThere are few figures more important in literary and critical theory than Jacques Derrida. Whether lauded or condemned, his writing has had far-reaching ramifications, and his work on deconstruction cannot be ignored. This volume introduces students of literature and cultural studies to Derrida's enormously influential texts, covering such topics as: deconstruction, text and difference; literature and freedom; law, justice and the 'democracy to come'; drugs, secrets and gifts. Nicholas Royle's unique book, written in an innovative and original style, is an outstanding introduction to the methods and significance of Jacques Derrida.Trade Review'Royle has the admirable gift of rendering the most difficult material accessible to students ... he can make it exciting to them, inspiring them to read more.' - Critical and Cultural TheoryTable of ContentsSeries Editor's Preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1. Why Derrida? 2. Key ideas 3. Deconstruction the earthquake 4. Be free 5. Supplement 6. Text 7. Difference 8. The most interesting thing in the world 9. Monsters 10. My Secret Life 11. Poetry Break 12. After Derrida Further Reading Works Cited Index

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisA work of literary criticism that may become - deserves to become - the most influential of its time' Bryan Appleyard, Sunday TimesTrade Review"'The most important critical work for decades' Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times 'Bate presents his case with an emotional conviction which is almost impossible to resist' The Times 'Anyone familiar with Bate's The Genius of Shakespeare will know how winningly he marries erudition to liveliness' John Coldstream, Daily Telegraph 'I came away from the book deeply grateful for its impassioned song' Adam Thorpe, Sun. Tel."

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisSmart, funny, often irreverent observations on 150 years of science fiction writing, from a literary master. This book brings together, from a quarter century of writing, great essays by the celebrated writer Thomas Disch from such diverse places as ""The Nation"", ""New York Times Book Review"", ""Atlantic Monthly"", ""Fantasy"", and ""Twilight Zone"".

Read more less

Book SynopsisWidely acclaimed as one of America's most distinguished female playwrights, Lillian Hellman made an entrance into a largely male-dominated field in 1934 with The Children's Hour, a drama that rocked the literary establishment with its frank treatment of lesbianism while calling attention to her writing talents.Table of ContentsPreface Chronology Life and Career The Plays: Summaries, Productions, and Critical Overviews Primary Bibliography Secondary Bibliography: Reviews Secondary Bibliography: Books, Articles, Sections Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisNow revised and expanded for its first paperback publication, The Life of Crime was the winner of four major prizes for the best critical/biographical book related to crime fiction: the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and H.R.F. Keating Awards; and was shortlisted for both the Agatha and Gold Dagger AwardsIn this groundbreaking history of crime fiction, acclaimed expert Martin Edwards traces the evolution of the genre from the eighteenth century to the present, offering a brand-new perspective on the world''s most popular form of storytelling.The Life of Crime is the result of a lifetime of reading and enjoying all types of mystery fiction from around the world. Martin Edwards has drawn on his experience as an award-winning novelist to capture the breadth and complexity of crime writing, telling the story of the genre''s development and evolution in a way that will fascinate and entertain anyone who delights in a good mystery.With crime fiction being read more widely than ever, The Life of Cr

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis unique edition brings together for the first time Austen-Leigh's memoir of his aunt Jane Austen, together with shorter recollections by James Edward's two sisters. It also includes Jane's brother Henry's two biographical accounts.Trade Reviewa must for lovers of Austen's work * Choice Magazine *A very good introduction by Kathryn Sutherland * Derwent May, the Times, *

Read more less

Book SynopsisJONATHAN BATE Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as the best modern book on Shakespeare. In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both the

Read more less

Book Synopsis'Hitchens presents a George Orwell fit for the twenty-first century.' --Boston Globe In this widely acclaimed biographical essay, the masterful polemicist Christopher Hitchens assesses the life, the achievements, and the myth of the great political writer and participant George Orwell. True to his contrarian style, Hitchens is both admiring and aggressive, sympathetic yet critical, taking true measure of his subject as hero and problem. Answering both the detractors and the false claimants, Hitchens tears down the façade of sainthood erected by the hagiographers and rebuts the critics point by point. He examines Orwell and his perspectives on fascism, empire, feminism, and Englishness, as well as his outlook on America, a country and culture toward which he exhibited much ambivalence. Whether thinking about empires or dictators, race or class, nationalism or popular culture, Orwell's moral outlook remains indispensable in a world that has undergone vast changes in the seven decades since his death. Combining the best of Hitchens' polemical punch and intellectual elegance in a tightly woven and subtle argument, this book addresses not only why Orwell matters today, but how he will continue to matter in a future, uncertain world.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA tale of murder, loss and romance in the mist of Niagara Falls: it is the crowning achievement of Joyce Carol Oates's career to date.A man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls. He''s a newly-wed, and his bride has been left behind in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. For two weeks, Ariah, the deserted bride, waits by the side of the roaring waterfall for news of her husband''s recovered body. During her vigil, an unlikely new love story begins to unfold when she meets a wealthy lawyer who is transfixed by her strange, otherworldly gaze. So it all begins, in the 1950s, with the dark foreboding of the Falls as the sinister background to the tragedy.From this cataclysmic event unfurls a drama of parents and their children; of secrets and sins; of lawsuits, murder and, eventually redemption. As Ariah's children learn that their past is enmeshed with a hushed-up scandal involving radioactive waste materials, they must confront not only their personal history but America's murky past: the despoiling of the American landscape and the corruption and greed of the massive industrial expansion of the 1950s and 1960s.This novel of tremendous sweep and pace is about the American family in crisis but also about America itself in the mid-20th century. This book alone places Joyce Carol Oates definitively in the company of the Great American Novelists.Trade Review'Eminently readable and though full of heart is utterly heartbreaking.' Vogue 'Oates offers a shrewd, often chilling analysis of an unhappy marriage…[she] deftly widens her focus to…Niagara, corrupt and dangerously polluted.' Sunday Times 'If you only read one new novel this autumn, make it this… you'll be hooked within pages' Mail on Sunday '…engaging…compelling…a flair for the minutiae of character…' Guardian 'The Falls is a swirling cataract of invention, and a mesmerising read.' Daily Telegraph

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisShows, contrary to the traditional view, that the major authors of German literary realism not only thematized environmental transformation but that it was central to their aesthetics.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe first self-contained edition and commentary on Books XVII and XVIII of Homer's Odyssey, which contain an account of the moment when the disguised Odysseus penetrates his home after an absence of twenty years and first glimpses Penelope. Ideal for use with upper-level undergraduate students.Table of ContentsPreface; Introduction; Homer: Odyssey XVII; Homer: Odyssey XVIII; Commentary; Bibliography.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA must have for MBA students and professional managers who need to use English at work.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA play that chronicles the adventures of the star-crossed lovers Oriole and Student Zhang. It is suitable for students of Chinese cultural and literary traditions.Table of ContentsPREFACE FOREWORD by Cyril Birch TABLE OF CHINESE DYNASTIES DRAMA TIS PERSONJE INTRODUCTION 1. The Status ofWang Shifu's Story cfthe Western Wing in Chinese Literature 2. Author and Authorship 3. The Pedigree of the Materials 4. Exceptions to the Rules 5. An Introduction to the World of The Western Wing TRANSLATION Book the First An Introduction to the Story of Oriole Cui and Student Zhang [Eight Satiric Songs Against The Western Wing] The Story cf the Western Wing Play I, Burning Incense and Worshiping the Moon Play II, Icy Strings Spell Out Grief Book the Second [Untitled] to the Tune "Basheng Ganzhou" The Story of the Western Wing Play III, Feelings Transmitted by Lines of Poetry Play IV, A Clandestine Meeting ofRain and Clouds Play V, A Reunion Ordained by Heaven [Publisher's Advertisement] APPENDICES Appendix I, A Pair cfBattling Quacks Appendix II, A Noontime Dream in the Garden Grove GLOSSARY SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

Read more less

Book SynopsisA meditation on both the roots of modernism and its manifestation in the work of H D, Ezra Pound, D H Lawrence, William Carlos Williams, Edith Sitwell, and many others. It is especially notable for its illumination of the role women played in creation of literary modernism.Trade Review"Published as the first volume in California's Collected Writings of Robert Duncan series, this lovingly prepared volume presents this long critical work, written in 1960 and 1961, in its full form for the first time." Publishers Weekly "The guiding light throughout is Duncan's clear, though subtly resonant prose, which lets even lengthy sentences carry the reader smoothly along from beginning to end." Foreword Reviews "I am besotted with a new book that is also an old book. This is The H.D. Book, by Robert Duncan, a wild, dazzling, idiosyncratic magnum opus... The wonders of The H.D. Book are almost without number. [It is] a work of exacting and extravagant optimism." -- Jed Perl New Republic "Profoundly coherent: a strikingly original and provocative articulation of an American literary vision that is engaged simultaneously with Romantic enchantment, modernist formalism, and an arguably postmodern concern with citational networks, self-displacement, and the shadow play of a language always larger than us." Bookforum "Extraordinary book." Tri-Quarterly Online "Into this eldritch tapestry Duncan weaves patches of poetic autobiography, strands of family history and reflections on his intellectual development." The Nation "Charming." Poetry Foundation/ Harriet "Robert Duncan's The H.D. Book, complete in print at last, now manifests the timeliness of its permanence." -- Jim Powell The Threepenny Rev "The belated publication of The H.D. Book will, one hopes, lead more readers to her haunting, resonant later work and also convince more readers to make the leap into Robert Duncan's demanding but gorgeous word-music. Someday, some century even, he and his peers in the Bay Area Renaissance ... will be recognized as the greatest and most rewarding American poets of their era." -- Greer Mansfield BookslutTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Book One: Beginnings Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Eros Chapter 4 Palimpsest Chapter 5 Occult Matters Chapter 6 Rites of Participation Book Two: Nights and Days Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Appendix 1: Preliminary Notes Toward Book 3 of The H.D. Book Appendix 2: Composition and Publication History of The H.D. Book Appendix 3: A List of Works Cited by Robert Duncan in The H.D. Book Credits Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisDealing with western literature, this poem of great warriors trapped between their own heroic pride and the arbitrary, often vicious decisions of fate and the gods. It captures the Iliad in all its surging thunder for a new generation of readers.Trade Review"A fine translation, accurate and energetic." -- Thomas L. Cooksey Library Journal "Taken as a whole this is the best line-for-line translation of the poem I know." -- Colin Burrow London Review of Books "By "preserving the strangeness" of Homer, [Peter Green] gives the reader the fullest possible access to the ancient mind, into Homer's distant universe of wine-faced seas, god-like men and bronze skies." -- Kate Havard The Washington Free Beacon "Translating Homer into English is almost a genre of its own... Is there still a gap in the market? Peter Green's new translation shows that there is... his particular merit lies in achieving a clarity and fluidity that carries the reader (or indeed the declaimer) forward... a notable achievement." -- Richard Jenkyns TLS "Readers will learn a great deal about the Iliad from Green's detailed introduction and from comprehensive synopses of each book. A list summarizing the roles of main characters (Achilles to Zeus) and an index of names will benefit new readers as well as pros... Summing Up: Highly recommended." -- R. Cormier CHOICE "Everything [in this book] is oriented towards helping us to understand the poem on its terms, and to appreciate its intricacy and subtlety, its grandeur and pathos, and its incomparable beauty." Claremont Review of Books "Green shows the wonderful things that can happen when Homeric rhythms are combined with a free-flowing and naturalistic English." ARGO "As reading Great Books migrates from the core of a college education to the margins, it's worth reflecting on just what students are missing and celebrating that there is a new addition to the Iliad family." National ReviewTable of ContentsPreface Abbreviations Introduction THE ILIAD Synopsis Glossary Select Bibliography

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less