This Concise Companion presents fresh perspectives on eighteenth-century literature. Contributes to current debates in the field on subjects such as the public sphere, travel and exploration, scientific rhetoric, gender and the book trade, and historical versus literary perceptions of life on London streets. Searches out connections between the remarkable number of new genres that appeared in the eighteenth century. Crosses conventional disciplinary lines. Demonstrates that philosophy, history, politics and social theory both influence and are influenced by literature.
A Companion to Latin American Literature and Culture reflects the changes that have taken place in cultural theory and literary criticism since the latter part of the twentieth century. Written by more than thirty experts in cultural theory, literary history, and literary criticism, this authoritative and up-to-date reference places major authors in the complex cultural and historical contexts that have compelled their distinctive fiction, essays, and poetry. This allows the reader to more accurately interpret the esteemed but demanding literature of authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Mario Vargas Llosa, Octavio Paz, and Diamela Eltit. Key authors whose work has defined a period, or defied borders, as in the cases of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, César Vallejo, and Gabriel García Márquez, are also discussed in historical and theoretical context. Additional essays engage the reader with in-depth discussions of forms and genres, and discussions of architecture, music, and film. This text provides the historical background to help the reader understand the people and culture that have defined Latin American literature and its reception. Each chapter also includes short selected bibliographic guides and recommendations for further reading.
This Concise Companion gives readers a rich sense of how the poetry produced in the United States during the twentieth century is connected to the country’s intellectual life more broadly. Helps readers to fully appreciate the poetry of the period by tracing its historical and cultural contexts. Written by prominent specialists in the field. Places the poetry of the period within contexts such as: war; feminism and the female poet; poetries of immigration and migration; communism and anti-communism; philosophy and theory. Each chapter ranges across the entire century, comparing poets from one part of the century to those of another. New syntheses make the volume of interest to scholars as well as students and general readers.
The Blackwell Companion to American Regional Literature is the most comprehensive resource yet published for study of this popular field. The most inclusive survey yet published of American regional literature. Represents a wide variety of theoretical and historical approaches. Surveys the literature of specific regions from California to New England and from Alaska to Hawaii. Discusses authors and groups who have been important in defining regional American literature.
This Concise Companion is a guide to the creative output of the United States in the postwar period, in its diverse energies, shapes and forms. Embraces diversity, covering Vietnam literature, gay and lesbian literature, American Jewish fiction, Italian American literature, Irish American writing, emergent ethnic literatures, African American writing, jazz, film, drama and more. Shows how different genres and approaches opened up creative possibilities and interacted in the postwar period. Portrays the postwar United States split by differences of wealth and position, by ethnicity and race, and by agendas of left and right, but united in the intensity of its creative drive.
This introduction to American literature and culture from 1900 to 1960 is organized around four major ideas about America: that is it “big”, “new”, “rich”, and “free”. Illustrates the artistic and social climate in the USA during this period. Juxtaposes discussion of history, popular culture, literature and other art forms in ways that foster discussion, questioning, and continued study. An appendix lists relevant primary and secondary works, including websites. An ideal supplement to primary texts taught in American literature courses.
The Concise Companion to Feminist Theory introduces readers to the broad scope of feminist theory over the last 35 years. Introduces readers to the broad scope of feminist theory over the past 35 years. Guides students along the cutting edge of current feminist theory. Suitable for students and scholars of all fields touched by feminist thought. Covers an exceptionally broad range of disciplines, discourses and feminist positions. Organised around concepts rather than schools of feminism.
How to Read World Literature addresses the unique challenges faced by a reader confronting foreign literature. Accessible and enlightening, Damrosch offers readers the tools to navigate works as varied as Homer, Sophocles, Kalidasa, Du Fu, Dante, Murasaki, Moliere, Kafka, Soyinka, and Walcott. Offers a unique set of "modes of entry” for readers encountering foreign literature Provides readers with the tools to think creatively and systematically about key issues such as reading across time and cultures, reading translated works, and emerging global perspectives Covers a wide variety of genres, from lyric and epic poetry to drama and prose fiction and discusses how these forms have been used in different eras and cultures
This major intervention into debates about the postcolonial and the global proposes that theory should embody unevenness as symptom even as it envisions strategies to get beyond unevenness. Radhakrishnan's thought-provoking engagement with theorists and writers from around the world will fascinate readers across a wide range of disciplines. A major intervention into debates about the postcolonial and the global. Proposes that theory bear the burden of unevenness even as it seeks a way out of it – neither captive to the world as it is, nor naively credulous of visions of the world as it should be, theory argues for an ethics of persuasion that is firmly rooted in political resistance. Engages with a wide range of theorists and writers from around the world. Ranges over fields as diverse as critical theory, postmodernism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, minority studies, cultural studies and anthropology.
In the twentieth century more people spoke English and more people wrote poetry than in the whole of previous history, and this Companion strives to make sense of this crowded poetical era. The original contributions by leading international scholars and practising poets were written as the contributors adjusted to the idea that the possibilities of twentieth-century poetry were exhausted and finite. However, the volume also looks forward to the poetry and readings that the new century will bring. The Companion embraces the extraordinary development of poetry over the century in twenty English-speaking countries; a century which began with a bipolar transatlantic connection in modernism and ended with the decentred heterogeneity of post-colonialism. Representation of the 'canonical' and the 'marginal' is therefore balanced, including the full integration of women poets and feminist approaches and the in-depth treatment of post-colonial poets from various national traditions. Discussion of context, intertextualities and formal approaches illustrates the increasing self-consciousness and self-reflexivity of the period, whilst a 'Readings' section offers new readings of key selected texts. The volume as a whole offers critical and contextual coverage of the full range of English-language poetry in the last century.