Literary Criticism : European

Basic Elements of Narrative outlines a way of thinking about what narrative is and how to identify its basic elements across various media, introducing key concepts developed by previous theorists and contributing original ideas to the growing body of scholarship on stories.: Includes an overview of recent developments in narrative scholarship; Provides an accessible introduction to key concepts in the field; Views narrative as a cognitive structure, type of text, and resource for interpersonal communication; Uses examples from literature, face to face interaction, graphic novels, and film to explore the core features of narrative; Includes a glossary of key terms, full bibliography, and comprehensive index; Appropriate for multiple audiences, including students, non-specialists, and experts in the field more...

Price: $79.95

The year 2006 marked the centenary of the birth of Nobel-Prize winning playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett. To commemorate the occasion, this collection brings together twenty-three leading international Beckett scholars from ten countries, who take on the centenary challenge of "revolving it all": that is, going "back to Beckett"-the title of an earlier study by critic Ruby Cohn, to whom the book is dedicated-in order to rethink traditional readings and theories; provide new contexts and associations; and reassess his impact on the modern imagination and legacy to future generations. These original essays, most first presented by the Samuel Beckett Working Group at the Dublin centenary celebration, are divided into three sections: (1) Thinking through Beckett, (2) Shifting Perspectives, and (3) Echoing Beckett. As repeatedly in his canon, images precede words. The book opens with stills from films of experimental filmmaker Peter Gidal and unpublished excerpts from Beckett's 1936-37 German Travel Diaries, presented by Beckett biographer James Knowlson, with permission from the Beckett estate. Renowned director and theatre theoretician Herbert Blau follows with his personal Beckett "thinking through." Others in Part I explore Beckett and philosophy (Abbott), the influences of Bergson (Gontarski) and Leibniz (Mori), Beckett and autobiography (Locatelli), and Agamben on post-Holocaust testimony (Jones). Essays in Part II recontextualize Beckett's works in relation to iconography (Moorjani), film theoretician Rudolf Arnheim (Engelberts), Marshall McLuhan (Ben-Zvi), exilic writing (McMullan), Pierre Bourdieu's literary field (Siess), romanticism (Brater), social theorists Adorno and Horkheimer (Degani-Raz), and performance issues (Rodriguez-Gago). Part III relates Beckett's writing to that of Yeats (Okamuro), Paul Auster (Campbell), Caryl Churchill (Diamond), William Saroyan (Bryden), Minoru Betsuyaku and Harold Pinter (Ta more...

Price: $29.95

''Leon Hugo, a distinguished Shaw scholar from the country in which The Black Girl in Search of God is set, is the ideal critic to examine Shaw's most famous prose tale--an allegory on a par with Voltaire's Candide. ''--Stanley Weintraub, Pennsylvania State University ''An astute reading of the text . more...

Price: $55.00

Centered on practices of the body—human bodies, the “body politic”—Bodies and Disciplines considers a fascinating and largely uncanonical group of texts, as well as public dramas, rituals, and spectacles, from multidisciplinary perspectives. The result is a volume that incorporates insights from history, literature, medieval studies, and critical theory, drawing from the strengths of each discipline to illuminate a relatively little-studied period. more...

Price: $72.00

British Identities, Heroic Nationalisms, and the Gothic Novel, 1764-1824 considers three interlocking developments of this period: the emergence of the Gothic novel at a time when national upheavals required the construction of a new nationalist identity, the Gothic novel's redefinition of heroes and heroism in that nationalist debate, and changes within class and gender as well as audience and author relations. The scope of this study extends beyond the confines of the novel proper to include chapbooks and illustrated redactions. more...

Price: $85.50