Literary Criticism

In this absorbing volume, David Lodge turns his incisive critical skills onto his own profession, salutes the great writers who have influenced his work, wonders about the motives of biographers, ponders the merits of creative writing courses, pulls the...

In this brief but highly engaging book Joseph Epstein argues for the primacy of fiction, and specifically of the novel, among all intellectual endeavors that seek to describe the behavior of human beings. Reading superior fiction, he holds, arouses the...

Surprising though it may seem, this is the first full-scale scholarly commentary in English on Virgil's Eclogues. Written between about 42 and 35 BC, these ten short pastorals are among the best known poems in Latin literature. They have inspired...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780993037863Author Anthony BurgessFormat PaperbackPage Count 130Imprint Pariah PressPublisher Pariah Press

In the first edition of this now-classic text, Richard Peterson offered an important revaluation of the poetry of Ben Jonson and a new appreciation of the way in which the classical doctrine of imitation-the creative use of the thoughts and words of...

No, Anti-Book is not a book about books. Not exactly. And yet it is a must for anyone interested in the future of the book. Presenting what he terms "a communism of textual matter," Nicholas Thoburn explores the encounter between political thought and...

Opening with a look at a Cambridge play satirising Shakespeare in his own time, we follow Cambridge's part in Shakespeare appreciation through the centuries. Against this background the book celebrates the annual open-air Cambridge Shakespeare Festival. ...

The Routledge Companion to Death and Literature seeks to understand the ways in which literature has engaged deeply with the ever-evolving relationship humanity has with its ultimate demise. It is the most comprehensive collection in this growing field...

From the late sixteenth century and well into the seventeenth, Spain produced one of the most vibrant and popular dramatic canons in the history of theatre, known as the Comedia. Collected, translated and edited by the pre-eminent scholars in the field...

In this lucid and fascinating book, Peter Brooks argues that melodrama is a crucial mode of expression in modern literature. After studying stage melodrama as a dominant popular form in the nineteenth century, he moves on to Balzac and Henry James to...

No literary figure of the past century - in America or perhaps in any other Western country - is comparable to Ezra Pound in the scope and depth of his exchange with China. To this day, scholars and students still find it puzzling that this influential...

The unprecedented popularity of the Harry Potter books took the publishing world by storm and captured the imaginations of readers around the world. This unofficial biographical study of J. K. Rowling invites fans and critics alike to take a close look...

The Philip Larkin I Knew traces the author's close friendship with the poet and stretches over his 30 year tenure of office as librarian of the University of Hull, taking in his literary achievements from "The Less Deceived" (1955), through "The Whitsun...

Generally acknowledged to be the most powerful of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays and frequently performed by the best actors of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, The Maid's Tragedy (1610-11) disappeared from the stage (except in a much-altered...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781900565592Author Hans Henny JahnnFormat PaperbackPage Count 176Imprint Atlas PressPublisher Atlas PressWeight(grams) 216g

Wang Wei has traditionally been considered one of the greatest of Tang dynasty poets, together with Li Bo and Du Fu. This is the first complete translation into English of all of his poems, and also the first substantial translation of a selection of his...

In Paradise Lost, Adam asks, "Why do I overlive?" Adam's anguished question is the basis for a critical analysis of living too long as a neglected but central theme in Western tragic literature. Emily Wilson examines this experience in works by Milton...

Dream literature is regarded as one of the most important genres in medieval literature and is widely studied. This text provides a succinct and clear introduction to the five central poems that comprise Chaucer's Dream Poetry, and shows his role as a...

A new Norton Anthology illuminates how literature can build character and foster critical-thinking skills for future leaders in business, law, politics, medicine, and beyond.About the AuthorElizabeth D. Samet received her BA from Harvard and her PhD in...

The Lyric Theory Reader collects major essays on the modern idea of lyric, made available here for the first time in one place. Representing a wide range of perspectives in Anglo-American literary criticism from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,...

As Jewish writers, artists, and intellectuals made their way into Western European and Anglo-American cultural centers, they encountered a society obsessed with decadence. An avant-garde movement characterized by self-consciously artificial art and...

Since 1996, Sam Adams's 'Letter from Wales' column has been appearing in PN Review, one of the most highly-regarded UK poetry magazines, offering insight and appreciation of Welsh writing, culture and history. This landmark volume collects these letters...

When we engage with the writings of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, we encounter a culture radically unfamiliar to us at the start of the twenty-first century. The past is a foreign country, and so too are many of its texts. This readable and...

A Preface to Paradise Lost provides an interpretation of Milton's purpose in writing the epic.ReviewsAn essential work in understanding both the literary approach of C.S. Lewis and the theological assumptions of Paradise Lost. Unparalleled in its...

Sponsored by the Department of Classics of Harvard University, a revised edition of the late Professor Smyth's A Greek Grammar for Colleges is now available. All necessary corrections have been made, and the book retains the form which has long made it...

Written specifically for GCSE students by academics in the field, the Methuen Drama GCSE Guides conveniently gather indispensable resources and tips for successful understanding and writing all in one place, preparing students to approach their exams...

The greatest and most enduring of the prophets of the Victorian era, Thomas Carlyle was prescient about the importance of heroism in defining a nation's ambition and character. First published in 1841, his On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in...

"No one can fail to admire the brilliance of the connections Vidal-Naquet suggests ...Audacity has been characteristic of Vidal-Naquet's career from the start; it marked his activities as a historian engage in the political struggle; it is visible at...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781614982456Author Mark ValentineFormat PaperbackPage Count 412Imprint Hippocampus PressPublisher Hippocampus PressWeight(grams) 549g

This book addresses Suzanne Collins's work from a number of literary and cultural perspectives in an effort to better understand both its significance and its appeal. It takes an interdisciplinary approach to the trilogy, drawing from literary studies,...

This is an up-to-date readers guide to Atwood's contemporary classic covering contexts, themes and criticism. Margaret Atwood's popular dystopian novel "A Handmaid's Tale", engages the reader with a broad range of issues relating to power,...

This ground-breaking book provides an abundance of fresh insights into Shakespeare's life in relation to his lost family home, New Place. The findings of a major archaeological excavation encourage us to think again about what New Place meant to...

Oxford Shakespeare Topics provides students, teachers, and interested readers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original...

Conversion disorder-a psychiatric term that names the enigmatic transformation of psychic energy into bodily manifestations-offers a way to rethink the present. With so many people suffering from unexplained bodily symptoms; with so many seeking recourse...

Brian Lee's study of American fiction from 1865 to 1940 draws on a wealth of material by, amongst others, Twain, James, Dreiser, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner. Though the works of these writers have been closely scrutinised by postwar critics in...

Up to the twelfth century writing in the western vernaculars dealt almost exclusively with religious, historical and factual themes, all of which were held to convey the truth. The second half of the twelfth century saw the emergence of a new genre, the...

"The most revealing and subjectively penetrating assessment of Baldwin's life yet published." -The New York Times Book Review. "The first Baldwin biography in which one can recognize the human features of this brilliant, troubled, principled, supremely...

How literature of the British imperial world contended with the social and environmental consequences of industrial miningThe 1830s to the 1930s saw the rise of large-scale industrial mining in the British imperial world. Elizabeth Carolyn Miller...

Octavia Butler (1947-2006) spent the majority of her prolific career as the only major black female author of science fiction. Winner of both the Nebula and Hugo Awards as well as a MacArthur ""genius"" grant, the first for a science fiction writer,...

This text explores what it is like to be part of both the lesbian and Jewish communities, suggesting ways in which lesbians can reconcile these seemingly discordant elements of their identity. It advocates the acceptance of lesbians into the Jewish...