13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by
Over an extraordinary twenty-year career, Jane Smiley has written all kinds of novels: mystery, comedy, historical fiction, epic. "Is there anything Jane Smiley cannot do?" raves Time magazine. But in the wake of 9/11, Smiley faltered in her hitherto unflagging impulse to write and decided to approach novels from a different angle: she read one hundred of them, from classics such as the thousand-year-old Tale of Genji to recent fiction by Zadie Smith, Nicholson Baker, and Alice Munro. Smiley explores-as no novelist has before her-the unparalleled intimacy of reading, why a novel succeeds (or doesn't), and how the novel has changed over time. She describes a novelist as "right on the cusp between someone who knows everything and someone who knows nothing," yet whose "job and ambition is to develop a theory of how it feels to be alive." In her inimitable style-exuberant, candid, opinionated-Smiley invites us behind the scenes of novel-writing, sharing her own habits and spilling the secrets of her craft. She walks us step-by-step through the publication of her most recent novel, Good Faith, and, in two vital chapters on how to write "a novel of your own," offers priceless advice to aspiring authors. Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel may amount to a peculiar form of autobiography. We see Smiley reading in bed with a chocolate bar; mulling over plot twists while cooking dinner for her family; even, at the age of twelve, devouring Sherlock Holmes mysteries, which she later realized were among her earliest literary models for plot and character. And in an exhilarating conclusion, Smiley considers individually the one hundred books she read, from Don Quixote to Lolita to Atonement, presenting her own insights and often controversial opinions. In its scope and gleeful eclecticism, her reading list is one of the most compelling-and surprising-ever assembled. Engaging, wise, sometimes irreverent, Thirteen Ways is essential reading for anyone who has ever escaped into the pages of a novel or, for that matter, wanted to write one. In Smiley's own words, ones she found herself turning to over the course of her journey: "Read this. I bet you'll like it."
101 Key Ideas: Literature by
From acmeism to westerns, this book contains 101 discursive accounts of ideas and terms which have shaped literature, directed at students working on essays and assignments. Entries are presented in alphabetical order in simple language, filling the gap between dictionaries and textbooks.
The Anatomy of Influence: literature as a way of life by
"Literary criticism, as I attempt to practice it," writes Harold Bloom in The Anatomy of Influence , "is in the first place literary, that is to say, personal and passionate."
For more than half a century, Bloom has shared his profound knowledge of the written word with students and readers. In this, his most comprehensive and accessible study of influence, Bloom leads us through the labyrinthine paths which link the writers and critics who have informed and inspired him for so many years. The result is "a critical self-portrait," a sustained meditation on a life lived with and through the great works of the Western canon: Why has influence been my lifelong obsessive concern? Why have certain writers found me and not others? What is the end of a literary life?
Featuring extended analyses of Bloom's most cherished poets--Shakespeare, Whitman, and Crane--as well as inspired appreciations of Emerson, Tennyson, Browning, Yeats, Ashbery, and others, The Anatomy of Influence adapts Bloom's classic work The Anxiety of Influence to show us what great literature is, how it comes to be, and why it matters. Each chapter maps startling new literary connections that suddenly seem inevitable once Bloom has shown us how to listen and to read. A fierce and intimate appreciation of the art of literature on a scale that the author will not again attempt, The Anatomy of Influence follows the sublime works it studies, inspiring the reader with a sense of something ever more about to be.
The Ancient Guide to Modern Life by
Whether political, cultural, or social, there are endless parallels between the ancient and modern worlds. Whether it's the murder of Caesar or the political assassination of Thatcher; the narrative arc of the hit HBO series, The Wire, or that of Oedipus; the popular enthusiasm for the Emperor Titus or President Obama - over and over again we can be seen to be living very much like people did 2,000 or more years ago. It's time for us to re-examine the past. Our lives are infinitely richer if we take the time to look at what the Greeks and Romans have given us in politics and law, religion and philosophy and education, and to learn how people really lived in Athens, Rome, Sparta and Alexandria. This is a book with a serious point to make but the author isn't just a classicist but a comedian and broadcaster who has made television and radio documentaries about humour, education and Dorothy Parker. This is a book for us all, not for an elite.
The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature by
"Fantasy is a creation of the Enlightenment and the recognition that excitement and wonder can be found in imagining impossible things. From the ghost stories of the Gothic to the zombies and vampires of twenty-first-century popular literature, from Mrs Radcliffe to Ms Rowling, the fantastic has been popular with readers. Since Tolkien and his many imitators, however, it has become a major publishing phenomenon. In this volume, critics and authors of fantasy look at the history of fantasy since the Enlightenment, introduce readers to some of the different codes for the reading and understanding of fantasy and examine some of the many varieties and subgenres of fantasy; from magical realism at the more literary end of the genre, to paranormal romance at the more popular end. The book is edited by the same pair who edited The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (winner of a Hugo Award in 2005)"-- Provided by publisher.
"Fantasy is not so much a mansion as a row of terraced houses, such as the one that entranced us in C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew with its connecting attics, each with a door that leads into another world. There are shared walls, and a certain level of consensus around the basic bricks, but the internal decor can differ wildly, and the lives lived in these terraced houses are discrete yet overheard. Fantasy literature has proven tremendously difficult to pin down. The major theorists in the field - Tzvetan Todorov, Rosemary Jackson, Kathryn Hume, W.R. Irwin and Colin Manlove - all agree that fantasy is about the construction of the impossible whereas science fiction may be about the unlikely, but is grounded in the scientifically possible. But from there these critics quickly depart, each to generate definitions of fantasy which include the texts that they value and exclude most of what general readers think of as fantasy. Most of them consider primarily texts of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. If we turn to twentieth-century fantasy, and in particular the commercially successful fantasy of the second half of the twentieth century, then, after Tolkien's classic essay, 'On Fairy Stories', the most valuable theoretical text for taking a definition of fantasy beyond preference and intuition is Brian Attebery's Strategies of Fantasy (1992)"-- Provided by publisher.
The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction by
Reading science fiction / Science fiction before the genre / Magazine era : 1926-1960 / New Wave and backwash : 1960-1980 / Science fiction from 1980 to the present / Film and television / Science fiction and its editors / Marxist theory and science fiction / Feminist theory and science fiction / Postmodernism and science fiction / Science fiction and queer theory / Icons of science fiction / Science fiction and the life sciences / Hard science fiction / Space opera / Alternate history / Utopias and anti-utopias / Politics and science fiction / Gender in science fiction / Race and ethnicity in science fiction / Religion and science fiction
Abstract: Science fiction is at the intersection of numerous fields. It is literature which draws on popular culture, and engages in speculation about science, history, and all varieties of social relations. This volume brings together essays by scholars and practitioners of science fiction, which look at the genre from different angles. It examines science fiction from Thomas More to the present day; and introduces important critical approaches (including Marxism, postmodernism, feminism and queer theory).
How Literature Saved My Life by
"Reading "How Literature Saved My Life "is like getting to listen in on a really great, smart, provocative conversation. The book is not straightforward, it resists any single interpretation, and it seems to me to constitute nothing less than a new form." --Whitney Otto
In this wonderfully intelligent, stunningly honest, painfully funny book, acclaimed writer David Shields uses himself as a representative for all readers and writers who seek to find salvation in literature.
Blending confessional criticism and anthropological autobiography, Shields explores the power of literature (from Blaise Pascal's "PensEes "to Maggie Nelson's "Bluets, " Renata Adler's "Speedboat" to Proust's" Remembrance of Things Past") to make life survivable, maybe even endurable. Shields evokes his deeply divided personality (his "ridiculous" ambivalence), his character flaws, his woes, his serious despairs. Books are his life raft, but when they come to feel un-lifelike and archaic, he revels in a new kind of art that is based heavily on quotation and consciousness. And he shares with us a final irony: he wants "literature to assuage human loneliness, but nothing can assuage human loneliness. Literature doesn't lie about this--which is what makes it essential."
A captivating, thought-provoking, utterly original way of thinking about the essential acts of reading and writing.
How Proust Can Change Your Life by
Alain de Botton combines two unlikely genres--literary biography and self-help manual--in the hilarious and unexpectedly practical How Proust Can Change Your Life.
Who would have thought that Marcel Proust, one of the most important writers of our century, could provide us with such a rich source of insight into how best to live life? Proust understood that the essence and value of life was the sum of its everyday parts. As relevant today as they were at the turn of the century, Proust's life and work are transformed here into a no-nonsense guide to, among other things, enjoying your vacation, reviving a relationship, achieving original and uncliched articulation, being a good host, recognizing love, and understanding why you should never sleep with someone on a first date. It took de Botton to find the inspirational in Proust's essays, letters and fiction and, perhaps even more surprising, to draw out a vivid and clarifying portrait of the master from between the lines of his work.
Here is Proust as we have never seen or read him before: witty, intelligent, pragmatic. He might well change your life.
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: a lively and entertaining guide to reading between the lines by
What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey'. Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surfacea symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a characterand there's that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you.
In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths, and to discover a world where a road leads to a quest; a shared meal may signify a communion; and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just rain. Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices, and form, How to Read Literature Like a Professor is the perfect companion for making your reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun.
Literary Theory: a very short introduction by
What is Literary Theory? Is there a relationship between literature and culture? In fact, what is Literature, and does it matter? These are the sorts of questions addressed by Jonathan Culler in a book which steers a clear path through a subject which is often perceived to be impenetrable. Itoffers insights into theories about the nature of language and meaning, whether literature is a form of self-expression or a method of appeal to an audience, and outlines the ideas behind a number of different schools: deconstruction, semiotics, postcolonial theory, and structuralism amongstthem.
The Literature Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained by
Examines "the greatest works of world literature, from the Iliad to Don Quixote to The Great Gatsby. Around 100 ... articles explore landmark novels, short stories, plays, and poetry that reinvented the art of writing in their time, whether Ancient Greece, post-classical Europe, or modern-day Korea.
Morning, Noon, and Night: finding the meaning of life's stages through books by
From Homer and Shakespeare to Toni Morrison and Jonathan Safran Foer, major works of literature have a great deal to teach us about two of life's most significant stages--growing up and growing old. Distinguised scholar Arnold Weinstein's provocative and engaging new book, Morning, Noon, and Night, explores classic writing's insights into coming-of-age and surrendering to time, and considers the impact of these revelations upon our lives.
With wisdom, humor, and moving personal observations, Weinstein leads us to look deep inside ourselves and these great books, to see how we can use art as both mirror and guide. He offers incisive readings of seminal novels about childhood--Huck Finn's empathy for the runaway slave Jim illuminates a child's moral education; Catherine and Heathcliff's struggle with obsessive passion in Wuthering Heights is hauntingly familiar to many young lovers; Dickens's Pip, in Great Expectations , must grapple with a world that wishes him harm; and in Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical Persepolis, little Marjane faces a different kind of struggle--growing into adolescence as her country moves through the pain of the Iranian Revolution.
In turn, great writers also ponder the lessons learned in life's twilight years: both King Lear and Willy Loman suffer as their patriarchal authority collapses and death creeps up; Brecht's Mother Courage displays the inspiring indomitability of an aging woman who has "borne every possible blow. . . but is still standing, still moving." And older love can sometimes be funny (Rip Van Winkle conveniently sleeps right through his marriage) and sometimes tragic (as J. M. Coetzee's David Lurie learns the hard way, in Disgrace ).
Tapping into the hearts and minds of memorable characters, from Sophocles' Oedipus to Artie in Art Spiegelman's Maus , Morning, Noon, and Night makes an eloquent and powerful case for the role of great literature as a knowing window into our lives and times. Its intelligence, passion, and genuine appreciation for the written word remind us just how crucial books are to the business of being human.
The Nature of Cities by
Cities are often thought to be separate from nature, but recent trends in ecocriticism demand that we consider them as part of the total environment. This new collection of essays sharpens the focus on the nature of cities by exploring the facets of an urban ecocriticism, by reminding city dwellers of their place in ecosystems, and by emphasizing the importance of this connection in understanding urban life and culture.
The editors--both raised in small towns but now living in major urban areas--are especially concerned with the sociopolitical construction of all environments, both natural and manmade. Following an opening interview with Andrew Ross exploring the general parameters of urban ecocriticism, they present essays that explore urban nature writing, city parks, urban "wilderness," ecofeminism and the city, and urban space. The volume includes contributions on topics as wide-ranging as the urban poetry of English writers from Donne to Gay, the manufactured wildness of a gambling casino, and the marketing of cosmetics to urban women by idealizing Third World "naturalness." These essays seek to reconceive nature and its cultural representations in ways that contribute to understanding the contemporary cityscape. They explore the theoretical issues that arise when one attempts to adopt and adapt an environmental perspective for analyzing urban life.
A Scream Goes Through the House: what literature teaches us about life by
"For too long we have been encouraged to see culture as an affair of intellect, and reading as a solitary exercise. But the truth is different: literature and art are pathways of feeling, and our encounter with them is social, inscribing us in a larger community.... Through art we discover that we are not alone." So writes the esteemed Brown University professor Arnold Weinstein in this brilliant, radical exploration of Western literature. In the tradition of Harold Bloom and Jacques Barzun, Weinstein guides us through great works of art, to reveal how literature constitutes nothing less than a feast for the heart. Our encounter with literature and art can be a unique form of human connection, an entry into the storehouse of feeling. Writing about works by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Munch, Proust, O'Neill, Burroughs, DeLillo, Tony Kushner, Toni Morrison, and others, Weinstein explores how writers and artists give us a vision of what human life is really all about. Reading is an affair of the heart as well as of the mind, deepening our sense of the fundamental forces and emotions that govern our lives, including fear, pain, illness, loss, depression, death, and love. Provocative, beautifully written, essential, A Scream Goes Through the House traces the human cry that echoes in literature through the ages, demonstrating how intense feelings are heard and shared. With intellectual insight and emotional acumen, Weinstein reveals how the scream that resounds through the house of literature, history, the body, and the family shows us who we really are and joins us together in a vast and timeless community.
Teaching the Literature Survey Course by
Teaching the Literature Survey Course makes the case for maintaining--even while re-imaging and re-inventing--the place of the survey as a transformative experience for literature students. Through essays both practical and theoretical, the collection presents survey teachers with an exciting range of new strategies for energizing their teaching and engaging their students in this vital encounter with our evolving literary traditions. From mapping early English literature to a team-based approach to the American survey, and from multimedia galleries to a "blank syllabus," contributors propose alternatives to the traditional emphasis on lectures and breadth of coverage. The volume is at once a set of practical suggestions for working teachers (including sample documents like worksheets and syllabi) and a provocative engagement with the question of what introductory courses can and should be.
What Light Can Do: essays on art, imagination, and the natural world by
What Light Can Do is a magnificent companion piece to the former U.S. Poet Laureate's Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning poetry collection, Time and Materials, as well as his earlier book of essays, the NBCC Award-winner Twentieth Century Pleasures. Haas brilliantly discourses on many of his favorite topics--on writers ranging from Jack London to Wallace Stevens to Allen Ginsberg to Cormac McCarthy; on California; and on the art of photography in several memorable pieces--in What Light Can Do, a remarkable literary treasure that might best be described as "luminous."
Why Read? by
In this important book, acclaimed author Mark Edmundson reconceives the value and promise of reading. He enjoins educators to stop offering up literature as facile entertainment and instead teach students to read in a way that can change their lives for the better. At once controversial and inspiring, this is a groundbreaking book written with the elegance and power to change the way we teach and read.
Why Read Moby-Dick? by
One of the greatest American novels finds its perfect contemporary champion in Why Read Moby-Dick?, Nathaniel Philbrick's enlightening and entertaining tour through the world of Melville's classic. Alone among its peers, Moby-Dick's length and subject matter have always made it an intimidating read, and in a moment when our culture increasingly comes to us in bites and bytes, Philbrick shows why this book will always deserve our time and capture our imagination. As he did in his National Book Award-winning bestseller In the Heart of the Sea , Philbrick brings a sailor's eye and an adventurer's passion to unfolding the story behind an epic American journey. He skilfully navigates Melville's world and illuminates the book's humor and unforgettable characters-finding the thread that binds Ishmael and Ahab to our own time and, indeed, to all times. An ideal match between author and subject, Why Read Moby-Dick? will start conversations, inspire arguments, and make a powerful case that this classic tale still waits to be discovered anew.
The ABC of Lit Crit by
This work has a single focus: how to say something about literature and how to organize oneself through use of technical terminology and general awareness to say something worthwhile. Key topics such as structure, theme, tone, genre and effects are discussed among others and a generous sample of essays are provided.
Academica Press is an independent scholarly press specializing in publishing monographs and reference material in the humanities and social sciences. We are particularly interested in producing works of scholarly interest English language studies, literary history and criticism ,drama, sociology, education and Irish studies. (Our dedicated imprint, Maunsel & Co., specializes in scholarly research in Irish studies.) We have recently developed projects in African and Afro-American research areas as well as Theology and Legal Studies.
Crossing Boundaries: Thinking Through Literature by
This eclectic collection interrogates boundaries with reference to nineteenth and twentieth-century literature, performance, music and film from a diverse range of critical and theoretical perspectives. The authors probe the issue of negotiating boundaries in their innovative and imaginative investigations of science in Dickens, Eliot and Pater; narrative in Hawking and Weinberg; Bakhtin and the feminization of translation; lesbian romance by Jeanette Winterson; transitional females in migrant postcolonial fiction; pedagogy in South Africa; materiality and hypertext; the semiotic and money in Jay McInerney; the role of clichT in Beckett; music in Wim Wenders; the 'real' in fiction, theory and performance; creative and academic writing; politics and aesthetics. Original contributions by Terry Eagleton and Sally Shuttleworth support this volume's exciting challenge to established boundaries and help to make it a scintillating and thought-provoking read.
Literary Theory by
With a new introduction and fully updated pointers to further reading, this second edition of Hans Bertens'bestselling book is a must-have guide to the world of literary theory.Exploring a broad range of topics from Marxist and feminist criticism to post-modernism and new historicism it includes new coverage of:the latest developments in post-colonial and cultural theory literature and sexuality the latest schools of thought, including eco-criticism and post-humanismthe future of literary theory and criticism.Literary Theory: The Basics is an essential purchase for anyone who wants to know what literary theory is and where it is going.
Other Renaissances : A New Approach to World Literature by
Other Renaissances is a collection of twelve essays discussing renaissances outside the Italian and Italian prompted European Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The collection proposes an approach to reframing the Renaissance in which the European Renaissance becomes an imaginative idea, rather than a particular moment in time
Reading the 21st Century: Books of the Decade, 2000-2009 by
In wide-ranging and innovative criticism, Stan Persky examines international non-fiction and fiction to engage with both the triumphs and tensions of reading and writing today. Evaluating works by established authors Philip Roth, Orhan Pamuk, J.M. Coetzee, and José Saramago, as well as emerging writers like Naomi Klein, Javier Cercas, and Chimamanda Adichie, Persky also showcases a remarkable group of reporters - Steve Coll, Dexter Filkins, and Rajiv Chandrasekaran - who have written essential books about global issues. An illuminating and accessible work about the present age, Reading the 21st Century introduces new ways of thinking about the world’s most significant cultural, political, and moral problems.
Why Literature Matters in the 21st Century by
Not just another jeremiad against prevailing isms and orthodoxies, Why Literature Matters in the 21st Century examines literature in its connection to virtue and moral excellence. The author is concerned with literature as the teacher of virtue. The current crisis in the humanities, Mark William Roche argues, may be traced back to the separation of art and morality. (“When the distinction between is and ought is leveled,” he writes, “the power of the professions increases.”) The arts and humanities concern themselves with the fate and prospects of humankind. Today that fate and those prospects are under the increasing influence of technology. In a technological age, literature gains in importance precisely to the extent that our sense of intrinsic value is lost. In its elevation of play and inexhaustible meaning, literature offers a counterbalance to reason and efficiency. It helps us grasp the ways in which diverse parts form a comprehensive and complex whole, and it connects us with other ages and cultures. Not least, great literature grapples with the ethical challenges of the day.
Why Reading Literature in School Still Matters: Imagination, Interpretation, Insight by
Why Reading Literature in School Still Matters: Imagination, Interpretation, Insight explains how a reader's involvement with literary texts can create conditions for developing deep insight into human experience, and how teachers can develop these interpretive possibilities in school contexts. Developed from the author's many years of research, this book offers both a theoretical framework that draws from an interdisciplinary array of sources and many compelling and insightful examples of literary engagement of child, adolescent, and adult readers, as well as practical advice for teachers and other readers about how to create interesting and expansive sites for interpretation that are personally rewarding and productive. Why Reading Literature in School Still Matters: Imagination, Interpretation, Insight : •provides an overview of theories of human learning that influence beliefs about language, culture, and identity; •shows how these theories of learning influence beliefs about and practices of reading and interpretation; •introduces new ways to conceptualize reading that emphasize the relationship between individual and collective identities and language/literacy practices; •explains why access to information does not guarantee that understanding and/or insight will occur--by emphasizing the importance of're-reading'and'close reading'this text shows that development of deep insight depends on interpretation skills that must be taught; and •presents a reconceptualized view of reading pedagogy. This is an essential text for education courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and a must read for teachers and for anyone interested in more deeply understanding how literary works of art can create conditions for learning about oneself, one's situation, and one's possibilities.
Fabulous Monsters by
An original look at how literary characters can transcend their books to guide our lives, by one of the world's most eminent bibliophiles Alberto Manguel, in a style both charming and erudite, examines how literary characters live with us from childhood on. Throughout the years, they change their identities and emerge from behind their stories to teach us about the complexities of love, loss, and the world itself. Manguel's favorite characters include Jim from Huckleberry Finn, Phoebe from The Catcher in the Rye, Job and Jonah from the Bible, Little Red Riding Hood and Captain Nemo, Hamlet's mother, and Dr. Frankenstein's maligned Monster. Sharing his unique powers as a reader, Manguel encourages us to establish our own literary relationships. An intimate preface and Manguel's own "doodles" complete this delightful and magical book.
