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Impersonality: Seven Essays
By Sharon Cameron. 2007
Philosophers have long debated the subjects of person and personhood. Sharon Cameron ushers this debate into the literary realm by…
considering impersonality in the works of major American writers and figures of international modernism—writers for whom personal identity is inconsequential and even imaginary. In essays on William Empson, Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, T. S. Eliot, and Simone Weil, Cameron examines the impulse to hollow out the core of human distinctiveness, to construct a voice that is no one’s voice, to fashion a character without meaningful attributes, a being that is virtually anonymous. “To consent to being anonymous,” Weil wrote, “is to bear witness to the truth. But how is this compatible with social life and its labels?” Throughout these essays Cameron examines the friction, even violence, set in motion from such incompatibility—from a “truth” that has no social foundation. Impersonality investigates the uncompromising nature of writing that suspends, eclipses, and even destroys the person as a social, political, or individual entity, of writing that engages with personal identity at the moment when its usual markers vanish or dissolve.The Provincial and The Postcolonial in Cultural Texts from Late Modern Turkey
By Evren Özselçuk. 2022
This book explores Turkey’s complicated relationship to modernity and its status within the new global order by tracing the ambivalent…
ways in which taşra (the provinces) is constituted in contemporary Turkish cinema and literature. Connoting much more than its immediate spatial meaning as those places outside of the center(s), taşra is a way of naming what modernity decries as spatial peripherality, temporal belatedness, and cultural backwardness. It has functioned historically as a psychosocial repository for what Turkish modernity degrades and disavows, enabling a mapping of the predicaments and contradictions of Turkish modernization and national identity-constitution. Organized around taşra as its central analytic and informed by postcolonial, psychoanalytical, and critical theory, the book examines the extent to which dominant codings of taşra are affirmed and/or complicated in cinematic and literary narratives by award-winning filmmakers Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Fatih Akın and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.Joseph Conrad is famous for being an unusual, strange, and even eccentric English writer. However, despite his difference, English criticism…
has primarily interpreted his fiction from the perspective of the English culture. In turn, Polish criticism has portrayed Conrad as a Pole who happened to write in English. Considering Conrad’s transcultural background, neither exclusively English nor an exclusively Polish writer, this volume investigates the essential features of his expatriate writing as a form distinctly different from any writing done within a single culture. Conrad's unique contribution to English literature and sensibility stems from his ability to incorporate the complexity of the exilic condition without discussing it explicitly. Furthermore, this book establishes Conrad's expatriation archetypes and examines them as they manifest themselves not only in a realistic, but, more importantly, in a symbolic mode. Those archetypal features demonstrate themselves through Conrad’s thematic choices, narrative structure, and critical discourse that reflect his complex relationship with both the parent and the adopted reader. While the existence of these patterns in Conrad's fiction are not entirely obvious, this book aims to illuminate Conrad’s contributions to the current critical debate concerning the place of the author in his/her own narrative.Distant Kinship: Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" in German Literature: Gender, Class, Race, and Trauma
By Matthias N. Lorenz. 2022
This study of Joseph Conrad's influential work "Heart of Darkness" presents for the first time the German-language reception of this…
reference text in the debate on postcolonialism. The spectrum ranges from Conrad's contemporaries (like Kafka) to many canonical authors of the 20th century (including Thomas Mann, Ernst Jünger, Christa Wolf) to the most recent names in literature (i.e. Christian Kracht und Lukas Bärfuss). Beyond the readings of their works, the study contributes to the study of cultural transfers as well as to Conrad philology, and it expands the theory of intertextuality with parameters that capture the complex factor of power in postcolonial relations.Vorstellungen von Absenz wirken in der Gegenwart auf breiter Basis – auch in der Literatur. Doch wie sind diese medial…
vermittelt? Geht man davon aus, dass Absenz-Phänomene sich nicht in einer primordialen Leere ereignen, sondern dass ihnen eher mit Vorstellungen vom Unbestimmten, Unverfügbaren und Möglichen beizukommen ist, rücken Verräumlichungsformen in den Fokus, die bewegungslogisch zu erklären sind. Um das intrikate Verhältnis von Möglichkeitsformen und ‚Wirklichkeit‘ innerhalb der Grenzen des Sagbaren zu verhandeln, begegnen ihm Thomas Bernhards und Christoph Ransmayrs Erzähltexte mit Verfahren der Verräumlichung. Aus der Perspektive einer Ästhetik der Absenz poetisieren diese Erzähltexte Wahrnehmungsschwellen, indem sie Abwesendes textphänomenal verräumlichen, es jedoch nicht im (topo-)graphischen containment absichern, sondern eine Topologie eröffnen, die auf Strategien des displacement setzt. Die Studie führt raumtheoretische Ansätze unter einer differenztheoretischen Perspektive mit einem Konzept von Virtualität zusammen, um literarische Verfahren der Verräumlichung von Absenz in Erzähltexten von Bernhard und Ransmayr zu untersuchen.The Dancing Mind
By Toni Morrison. 1996
On the occasion of her acceptance of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters on the…
sixth of November, 1996, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison speaks with brevity and passion to the pleasures, the difficulties, the necessities, of the reading/writing life in our time.Rilke: The Last Inward Man
By Lesley Chamberlain. 2022
An incisive and intimate account of the life and work of the great poet Rilke, exploring the rich interior world…
he created in his poetryWhen Rilke died in 1926, his reputation as a great poet seemed secure. But as the tide of the critical avant-garde turned, he was increasingly dismissed as apolitical, as too inward. In Rilke: The Last Inward Man, acclaimed critic Lesley Chamberlain uses this charge as the starting point from which to explore the expansiveness of the inner world Rilke created in his poetry. Weaving together searching insights on Rilke's life, work and reception, Chamberlain casts Rilke's inwardness as a profound response to a world that seemed ever more lacking in spirituality. In works of dazzling imagination and rich imagery, Rilke sought to restore spirit to Western materialism, encouraging not narrow introversion but a heightened awareness of how to live with the world as it is, of how to retain a sense of transcendence within a world of collapsed spiritual certainty.The Racial Unfamiliar: Illegibility in Black Literature and Culture (Literature Now)
By John Brooks. 2022
The works of African American authors and artists are too often interpreted through the lens of authenticity. They are scrutinized…
for “positive” or “negative” representations of Black people and Black culture or are assumed to communicate some truth about Black identity or the “Black experience.” However, many contemporary Black artists are creating works that cannot be slotted into such categories. Their art resists interpretation in terms of conventional racial discourse; instead, they embrace opacity, uncertainty, and illegibility.John Brooks examines a range of abstractionist, experimental, and genre-defying works by Black writers and artists that challenge how audiences perceive and imagine race. He argues that literature and visual art that exceed the confines of familiar conceptions of Black identity can upend received ideas about race and difference. Considering photography by Roy DeCarava, installation art by Kara Walker, novels by Percival Everett and Paul Beatty, drama by Suzan-Lori Parks, and poetry by Robin Coste Lewis, Brooks pinpoints a shared aesthetic sensibility. In their works, the devices that typically make race feel familiar are instead used to estrange cultural assumptions about race. Brooks contends that when artists confound expectations about racial representation, the resulting disorientation reveals the incoherence of racial ideologies. By showing how contemporary literature and art ask audiences to question what they think they know about race, The Racial Unfamiliar offers a new way to understand African American cultural production.Drawing on a selection of carefully curated autobiographical and fictional portrayals of the dementia experience, this book gives voice to…
some of the most pressing ethical issues that commonly arise in the context of a dementing disorder, and calls attention to various forms of narrative resistance in contemporary American literature on early-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Based on the premise that the current public discourse on AD is largely dominated by an anxiety and fear-promoting conception of the illness, this multilayered inquiry strives to look beyond the widespread horrors of forgetting and loss in AD, and, in doing so, attempts to give a better, more accurate, and more balanced impression of what it means to be living with such a diagnosis.The Language of Dystopia (Palgrave Studies in Language, Literature and Style)
By Jessica Norledge. 2022
This book presents an extended account of the language of dystopia, exploring the creativity and style of dystopian narratives and…
mapping the development of the genre from its early origins through to contemporary practice. Drawing upon stylistic, cognitive-poetic and narratological approaches, the work proposes a stylistic profile of dystopia, arguing for a reader-led discussion of genre that takes into account reader subjectivity and personal conceptualisations of prototypicality. In examining and identifying those aspects of language that characterise dystopian narratives and the experience of reading dystopian fictions, the work discusses in particular the manipulation and construction of dystopian languages, the conceptualisation of dystopian worlds, the reading of dystopian minds, the projection of dystopian ethics, the unreliability of dystopian refraction, and the evolution and hybridity of the dystopian genre.Milton's Late Poems: Forms of Modernity
By Lee Morrissey. 2022
Upending conventional scholarship on Milton and modernity, Lee Morrissey recasts Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes as narrating three…
alternative responses to a world in upheaval: adjustment, avoidance and antagonism. Through incisive engagement with narrative, form, and genre, Morrissey shows how each work, considered specifically as a fiction, grapples with the vicissitudes of a modern world characterised more by paradoxes, ambiguities, subversions and shifting temporalities than by any rigid historical periodization. The interpretations made possible by this book are as invaluable as they are counterintuitive, opening new definitions and stimulating avenues of research for Milton students and specialists, as well as for those working in the broader field of early modern studies. Morrissey invites us to rethink where Milton stands in relation to the greatest products of modernity, and in particular to that most modern of genres, the novel.English Literary Renaissance, volume 52 number 3 (Autumn 2022)
By English Literary Renaissance. 2022
This is volume 52 issue 3 of English Literary Renaissance. English Literary Renaissance (ELR) is a leading journal for new…
research in Tudor and Stuart literature, including the Sidneys, Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, Milton, and their many contemporaries. In addition to critical work, ELR also publishes review essays and occasional editions of short significant manuscripts, such as letters, legal documents with literary relevance, and poetry.A Posthumous History of José Martí: The Apostle and His Afterlife focuses on Martí’s posthumous legacy and his lasting influence…
on succeeding generations of Cubans on the island and abroad. Over 120 years after his death on a Cuban battlefield in 1895, Martí studies have long been the contested property of opposing sides in an ongoing ideological battle. Both the Cuban nation-state, which claims Martí as a crucial inspiration for its Marxist revolutionary government, and diasporic communities in the US who honor Martí as a figure of hope for the Cuban nation-in-exile, insist on the centrality of his words and image for their respective visions of Cuban nationhood. The book also explores more recent scholarship that has reassessed Martí’s literary, cultural, and ideological value, allowing us to read him beyond the Havana-Miami axis toward engagement with a broader historical and geographical tableau. Martí has thus begun to outgrow his mutually-reinforcing cults in Cuba and the diaspora, to assume his true significance as a hemispheric and global writer and thinker.Pinter: A Study of His Plays (Routledge Revivals)
By Martin Esslin. 1977
First published in 1977, the third edition of Pinter is an excellent analysis of Harold Pinter and his works. Written…
when Pinter was only a few plays old, the book draws on several sources, including interviews with Pinter himself, to comment on Pinter’s career, his aesthetic and philosophical choices, and his oeuvre as a writer. The section devoted to his individual plays has been arranged in a chronological manner to visually represent the growth of the playwright and the relationship shared between his early and later works. Esslin, known for coining the term ‘theatre of the absurd,’ was himself an inspiration to Pinter and hence, the book records an intellectual and creative exchange between the author and his subject. The book will be of interest to students of literature, drama, history as well as to an academically inclined theatre audience.The Novel in India: Its Birth and Development (Routledge Revivals)
By T. W. Clark. 1970
First published in 1970, The Novel in India traces the birth and development of prose fiction in Bengali, Marathi, Urdu,…
Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam. It is addressed not only to academic students of Asian culture but to all who are interested in literary history. India and Pakistan have many great literatures, but they are almost unknown beyond their own boundaries. Language is a formidable barrier, and this book is offered in the hope that it can bridge the cultural divide that language has created. It has a fascinating story to tell of the endeavours, experiments and achievements of writers who deserve to be better known outside their native land.My Dear Holmes: A Study in Sherlock (Routledge Revivals)
By Gavin Brend. 1951
First published in 1951, My Dear Holmes is a biography of Sherlock Holmes, which originated from the author’s re-reading of…
the Sherlock Holmes stories to his daughter, supplies answers to mysteries such as when was Holmes born? Which was his university? How many times was Watson married and in what years? Why did he leave Baker Street without a word of explanation in 1896? Why did the two Moriarty brothers have the same Christian name? Why were there apparently different cases all known as "the Second Stain"? The author takes the sixty cases narrated by Watson, many of which are undated, deduces the year in each case, and weaves the whole into a single continuous story, with the intention of filling the gaps in our knowledge of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. To those who are partial to the London of gaslight, hansom cabs, feather boas and income tax at one shilling and twopence in the pound, this book can be recommended.Blurb Your Enthusiasm: An A-Z of Literary Persuasion
By Louise Willder. 2022
&‘The bookiest book about books you&’ll ever read – I loved it&’ Lucy Mangan &‘Truly delightful...I couldn&’t have had more…
fun&’ Benjamin Dreyer &‘Very funny, erudite and profound. A delight!&’ Nina Stibbe This is the outside story of books. From blurbs to titles, quotes to (checks jacket) cute animal designs – via author feuds, writing tricks, classic literature, bonkbusters, plot spoilers and publishing secrets – discover why it&’s good to judge a book by its cover. Maybe even this one…Boy Actors in Early Modern England: Skill and Stagecraft in the Theatre
By Harry R. McCarthy. 2022
Boy Actors in Early Modern England: Skill and Stagecraft in the Theatre provides a new approach to the study of…
early modern boy actors, offering a historical re-appraisal of these performers' physical skills in order to reassess their wide-reaching contribution to early modern theatrical culture. Ranging across drama performed from the 1580s to the 1630s by all-boy and adult companies alike, the book argues that the exuberant physicality fostered in boy performers across the early modern repertory shaped not only their own performances, but how and why plays were written for them in the first place. Harry R. McCarthy's ground-breaking approach to boy performance draws on detailed analysis of a wide range of plays, thorough interrogation of the cultural contexts in which they were written and performed, and present-day practice-based research, offering a critical reimagining of this important and unique facet of early modern theatrical culture.The Waste Land and Other Poems (Norton Critical Editions #0)
By T. S. Eliot. 2022
“This splendid new edition of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land will elucidate his legacy for a rising generation of…
students, teachers, and general readers. The inclusion of poems from Eliot’s first two collections, a substantial selection of background material and scholarship, expert annotation, and Michael North’s learned and incisive introduction detailing the development of Eliot’s poetic coming-of-age make this an invaluable resource.” —Anita Patterson, Boston University This Norton Critical Edition includes: The first American edition of The Waste Land, with Eliot’s notes, joined by Prufrock and Other Poems (1917) and Poems (1920). Updated and expanded introductory materials and footnotes by Michael North. Extensive contextual materials on sources for The Waste Land, its composition, and publication history for all three featured collections. Eleven reviews and reactions to Eliot’s works include those by Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, and Ralph Ellison. Five new critical essays examine the themes and legacy of Eliot’s hallmark poems alongside eight classic literary critiques. A chronology and a selected bibliography. About the Series Read by more than 12 million students over fifty-five years, Norton Critical Editions set the standard for apparatus that is right for undergraduate readers. The three-part format—annotated text, contexts, and criticism—helps students to better understand, analyze, and appreciate the literature, while opening a wide range of teaching possibilities for instructors. Whether in print or in digital format, Norton Critical Editions provide all the resources students need. “This splendid new edition of T. S. Eliot’s landmark poem provides an authoritative 1922 edition of the text, the most vital materials for understanding it, and, for this supremely allusive poem, a collection of essential sources. It also brings together Eliot’s most pertinent essays and all the English poems in his earlier books, as well as an illuminating array of reviews and criticism published over the last hundred years.” — Jahan Ramazani, University of VirginiaOtro tipo de música
By Colombina Parra. 2022
En su debut como escritora, Colombina Parra utiliza los mecanismos de la memoria para llevar a cabo, en este sorpresivo…
conjunto de relatos y recuerdos, una exploración interna que va desde los recuerdos de infancia y adolescencia hasta una adultez repleta de momentos cómicos, desoladores e incluso insospechados, que han llevado a la autora hacia una comprensión budista de la existencia. Otro tipo de música evoca la vida familiar —mediante la añoranza, la rabia y la felicidad— e íntima de la autora, parte de esta valiosa constelación artística conocida como «Familia Parra», y ofrece, mediante breves historias y aforismos, una introducción divertida y original a la contemplación de lo que nos ocurre cada día. «Tengo mis dudas sobre lo que escribo, sobre el real interés en lo que busco. Antes quise que mis canciones no las escuchara nadie. Algo de voyerismo tiene todo esto. Tú mismo ahora estás mirando por un agujero cómo me desnudo. Crees que lo voy a hacer por completo. En verdad lo estoy haciendo».