Academic : Literature : English literature : Criticism

At once an allegory for both utopia and totalitarianism, George Orwell's Animal Farm expresses a dismal view of humans and their attempts to create a just society without compassion, history, and nonviolence. CliffsNotes on Animal Farm opens the door to help you appreciate Orwell's unforgettable morality tale. Count on CliffsNotes' plot summaries and detailed commentary to guide you through this anti-utopian novel that entertains as it teaches. more...

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This volume covers a tumultuous period in Yeats's public and personal life, beginning with the acrimonious collapse of Maud Gonne's marriage to Major MacBride (who not only accused Yeats of being her lover but also threatened to shoot him), and encompassing the fiery disputes in the Abbey Theatre as it changed from an amateur society into a professional company. Through all this, we see Yeats maturing as an artist: writing and revising poems and plays, and preparing an eight-volume. Collected Works through which he hoped to define his artistic personality. The letters not only record an energetic and bruising period, but also bear witness to Yeats's indomitable fighting spirit and artistic integrity. - ;This volume covers a tumultuous period in Yeats's public and personal life, beginning with the acrimonious collapse of Maud Gonne's marriage to Major MacBride (who not only accused Yeats of being her lover but also threatened to shoot him). Dramas at the Abbey Theatre were hardly less intense, both on and off the stage: the euphoria which followed the successful opening of the new theatre quickly dispersed in a relentless cycle of quarrels and schisms. Yeats's attempts to turn an. enthusiastic but ill-disciplined amateur society into a professional company led to a permanent division in the company, while the vagaries of Annie Horniman, the irascible patron of the theatre, put the whole movement under permanent tension. Violence actually broke out in January 1907 when the. audience rioted at the production of John Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, believing it to be a libel on Ireland. Through all this we see Yeats maturing as an artist: discussing the writing and revising of his poems and plays, preparing the first elaborate American edition of his poems, and undertaking an ambitious eight-volume Collected Works through which he hoped to define his artistic personality. The letters not only record this energetic and often bruising more...

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Analyzing the plays of Shakespeare, Fletcher, Davenant, Dryden, Behn and other playwrights, Heidi Hutner argues that in drama, as in historical accounts, the symbol of the native woman is used to justify the English commodification and exploitation of the New World and its native inhabitants. more...

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This wide-ranging Companion to Modern British and Irish Drama offers challenging analyses of a range of plays in their political contexts. It explores the cultural, social, economic and institutional agendas that readers need to engage with in order to appreciate modern theatre in all its complexity.:.; An authoritative guide to modern British and Irish drama.; Engages with theoretical discourses challenging a canon that has privileged London as well as white English males and realism.; Topics covered include: national, regional and fringe theatres; post-colonial stages and multiculturalism; feminist and queer theatres; sex and consumerism; technology and globalisation; representations of war, terrorism, and trauma. more...

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Brings together 48 fresh and original contributions from practicing poets and leading scholars, who together offer critical and contextual coverage of the full range of English-language poetry in the last century.:.; Brings together original contributions by leading international scholars and practising poets.; Offers critical and contextual coverage of the full range of English-language poetry in the twentieth-century.; Incorporates new readings of key selected texts.; Embraces the extraordinary development of poetry over the century in twenty English-speaking countries.; Fully integrates women poets, feminist approaches and post-colonial poets. more...

Price: $138.95