This engrossing book describes how four twentieth-century women writers-Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Toni Morrison, and Grace Paley-have inherited and adapted the classical tradition of American romance fiction. Emily Miller Budick argues that this tradition, exemplified by the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Henry James, William Faulkner, and Ralph Ellison, is inherently skepticist, questioning whether and how we know reality. It is also sharply critical of the patriarchal bias of American culture, which is understood by these writers as a way of evading or settling philosophical doubt. Analyzing such works as The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick, The Portrait of a Lady, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Invisible Man, Budick explores this antipatriarchal critique and shows how it enables the twentieth-century women romancers to inherit the tradition. In their writings, however-in McCullers's Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away, Morrison's Song of Solomon and Beloved, and Paley's short stories-these writers do more than further the concerns of the male authors. They also explore the idea of maternal knowledge and think through alternatives not only to the patriarchal organization of society but to matriarchal constructions as well. Budick offers provocative insights into what it means to inherit a tradition--in particular across lines of gender, but also across lines of race--as she discusses the ways these four women writers revise the genre of romance to accommodate the exigencies of modern American society.

"Philip Larkin, one of England's greatest and most popular twentieth-century poets, is nonetheless widely regarded as a misanthropic, provincial recluse. This volume re-examines that critical view and argues that Larkin's poetry, far from demonstrating his misanthropy, highlights his profound awareness of and concern for readers"--Provided by publisher.

"Textual Mothers/Maternal Texts" focuses on mothers as subjects and as writers who produce auto/biography, fiction, and poetry about maternity. International contributors examine the mother without child, with child, and in her multiple identities as grandmother, mother, and daughter.

The collection examines how authors use textual spaces to accept, negotiate, resist, or challenge traditional conceptions of mothering and maternal roles, and how these texts offer alternative practices and visions for mothers. Further, it illuminates how textual representations both reflect and help to define or (re)shape the realities of women and families by examining how mothering and being a mother are political, personal, and creative narratives unfolding within both the pages of a book and the spaces of a life. The range of chapters maps a shift from the daughter-centric stories that have dominated the maternal tradition to the matrilineal and matrifocal perspectives that have emerged over the last few decades as the mother's voice moved from silence to speech.

Contributors make aesthetic, cultural, and political claims and critiques about mothering and motherhood, illuminating in new and diverse ways how authors and the protagonists of the texts "read" their own maternal identities as well as the maternal scripts of their families, cultures, and nations in their quest for self-knowledge, agency, and artistic expression.

With the publication of this text, Karla Holloway becomes the first to produce a book-length analysis of Hurston's use of language in her four major novels. . . . Holloway supports all of her contentions by combining studies of African and Afro-American culture with Euramerican critical theories of semiology and structuralism. The result is a fascinating study of the shifting language of the narrators in each of Hurston's novels, and how these shifts relate to the emotional states of the characters and to the novelist herself. Choice In The Character of the Word: The Texts of Zora Neale Hurston, Karla F.C. Holloway breaks new ground by placing Hurston's life and writings in a context at once literary and political. In a political sense, Hurston envisioned herself as the embodiment of her African heritage and felt that her writing was its message. From a literary perspective, Hurston's work had a tremendous influence on her daughters: writers such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. Writing from the perspective of a black feminist, Holloway defines the milieu in which Hurston came of age and emphasizes the influence of this community upon her writing.

This is the only English-language book to deal in depth with Austrian women writers of the postwar and contemporary period. It is a comparative study of the works of Marlen Haushofer, Ingeborg Bachmann, Barbara Frischmuth, Elfriede Jelinek, and Brigitte Schwaiger. Their works are examined in light of their criticism of women's position in Austrian society, the writers' relationship to feminism, and the influence of the change in women's status on their literature. Vansant's introduction provides a broad historical overview and discusses some of the factors influencing the development of women's literature in Austria from 1918 to the present.

At the heart of Christian theology lies a paradox unintelligible to other religions and to secular humanism: that in the person of Jesus, God became man, and suffered on the cross to effect humanity's salvation. In his dual nature as mortal and divinity, and unlike the impassable God of other monotheisms, Christ thus became accessible to artistic representation. Hence the figure of Jesus has haunted and compelled the imagination of artists and writers for 2,000 years. This was never more so than in the 20th Century, in a supposedly secular age, when the Jesus of popular fiction and film became perhaps more familiar than the Christ of the New Testament. In Re-Writing Jesus: Christ in 20th Century Fiction and Film Graham Holderness explores how writers and film-makers have sought to recreate Christ in work as diverse as Anthony Burgess's Man of Nazareth and Jim Crace's Quarantine, to Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ and Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. These works are set within a longer and broader history of 'Jesus novels' and 'Jesus films', a lineage traced back to Ernest Renan and George Moore, and explored both for their reflections of contemporary Christological debates, and their positive contributions to Christian theology. In its final chapter, the book draws on the insights of this tradition of Christological representation to creatively construct a new life of Christ, an original work of theological fiction that both subsumes the history of the form, and offers a startlingly new perspective on the biography of Christ.

One of the founding members of the Provincetown Players, Susan Glaspell contributed to American literature in ways that exceed the work she did for this significant theatre group. Interwoven in her many plays, novels and short stories is astute commentary on the human condition. This volume provides an in-depth examination of Glaspell's writing and how her language conveys her insights into the universal dilemma of society versus self. Glaspell's ideas transcended the plot and character. Her work gave prominent attention to such issues as gender, politics, power and artistic daring. Through an exploration of eight plays written between the years of 1916 and 1943, ""Trifles"", ""Springs Eternal"", ""The People"", ""Alison's House"", ""Bernice"", ""The Outside"", ""Chains of Dew"" and ""The Verge"" - this work concentrates on one Glaspell's central themes: individuality versus social existence. It explores the range of forces and fundamental tensions that influence the perception and communication of her characters. The final chapter includes a brief commentary on other Glaspell works. A biographical overview provides background for the author's reading and interpretation of the plays, placing Glaspell historically within the post-modern movement.

Listening to poets read their work focuses critical attention on the craft of the poem, while raising questions about the relationship between social history, technology, and the poet's "voice." "Recorded Poetry and Poetic Reception from Edna Millay to the Circle of Robert Lowell" offers an analysis of a wide range of recordings, from commercial and amateur, to official studio sessions, to ephemeral events captured on reel-to-reel tape. Through the mid-century performances of poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, Dylan Thomas and Anne Sexton, Derek Furr draws penetrating new conclusions about how and why poetry was recorded in the U.S. from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Appearing in book form for the first time, this treasure trove of letters illuminates the life of the beloved poet/writer from early childhood into middle age.

All her life, May Sarton carried on a voluminous private correspondence—with family, friends, and lovers. From the beginning, as these remarkable letters show, the essence of an extraordinary human being was present, her gifts ready to unfurl and mature.

Fittingly, an early letter thanks parents for books. Later we enter the world of the theater, then years rich with study, travel, teaching, and the discipline of craft. Sarton's deep anguish as World War II approaches pervades many letters, but readers will also encounter the things that gave Sarton joy: her love of flowers, her affection for animals, her celebration of beauty in all its guises.

As Sarton divides her time between America and Europe, in an era when ocean voyages were the norm, illustrious acquaintances and intimates are introduced, among them Eva Le Gallienne, Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, Muriel Rukeyser, Julian and Juliette Huxley, and Louise Bogan. Always, Sarton's voice is clear and courageous, startlingly candid about her passions, her moods, and her vulnerabilities. Her words, seeming as fresh as when they were written, stand against the backdrop of the crucial events of the century as she invites old and new readers into her personal world.

This volume contains a selection of the papers presented at the Conference on Historical News Discourse (Chined) that was held in Florence (Italy) on 2-3 September 2004. The aim of the Conference was to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of recent research in the field of news discourse in early modern Britain. The first section of the volume focuses on news discourse in serial publications while the second part examines aspects of news language in non-serial works. Contributions include synchronic and diachronic analyses of reportage, polemic, propaganda, review journalism and advertisements in a wide range of texts including newsletters, pamphlets and newspapers. Each section is structured chronologically so that the reader can appreciate aspects of the general historical development of news discourse. The variety of topics and methodologies reflects some of the most interesting research being carried out in the field.

Examining a wide range of genres, including novels, memoirs, travel writing and journalism, this book explores representations of Muslims and Islam in modern English literature. The relationship between Islam and the West is one of the most urgent and hotly debated issues of our time. This book is the first to offer a comprehensive overview of the way in which Muslims are represented within modern English writing, ranging from the novel, through memoir and travel writing to journalism. Covering a wide range of texts and authors, it scrutinises the identity 'Muslim' by looking at its inscription in recent and contemporary literary writing within the context of significant events like the Rushdie Affair, the Gulf War and 9/11. Examining the wide range of writing internationally that takes Islam or Islamic cultures as its focus, the authors discuss the representation of Muslim identity in writing by non-Muslim writers, former Muslim 'native informants', and practising Muslims.

Imagine reading a classic novel like James Joyce's "Ulysses" as though for the first time. Such an exercise, especially when informed by contemporary narrative theory, makes possible a different reading experience of the work, one with a renewed focus on plot and a surprising amount of suspense. Veteran Joyce scholar Margot Norris offers an innovative study of the processes of reading "Ulysses" as narrative and focuses on the unexplored implications, subplots, subtexts, hidden narratives, and narratology in one of the twentieth century's most influential novels. It is a striking and essential contribution to literary criticism that will change the readings and understandings of Joyce's most important work.

Awarded third place for The Adam Gillon Book Award in Conrad Studies 2009 The book presents a sustained critique of the interlinked (and contradictory) views that the fiction of Joseph Conrad is largely innocent of any interest in or concern with sexuality and the erotic, and that when Conrad does attempt to depict sexual desire or erotic excitement then this results in bad writing. Jeremy Hawthorn argues for a revision of the view that Conrad lacks understanding of and interest in sexuality. He argues that the comprehensiveness of Conrad's vision does not exclude a concern with the sexual and the erotic, and that this concern is not with the sexual and the erotic as separate spheres of human life, but as elements dialectically related to those matters public and political that have always been recognized as central to Conrad's fictional achievement. The book will open Conrad's fiction to readings enriched by the insights of critics and theorists associated with Gender Studies and Post-colonialism.

This book serves as analysis of the aesthetics of materiality in the multifaceted work of Antonin Artaud, one of Twentieth-Century France's most provocative and influential figures, spanning literature, performance, art, cinema, media and critical theory.

The novels of David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers and Jonathan Safran Foer are increasingly regarded as representing a new trend, an 'aesthetic sea change' in contemporary American literature. 'Post-postmodernism' and 'New Sincerity' are just two of the labels that have been attached to this trend. But what do these labels mean? What characterizes and connects these novels? Den Dulk shows that the connection between these works lies in their shared philosophical dimension. On the one hand, they portray excessive self-reflection and endless irony as the two main problems of contemporary Western life. On the other hand, the novels embody an attempt to overcome these problems: sincerity, reality-commitment and community are portrayed as the virtues needed to achieve a meaningful life. This shared philosophical dimension is analyzed by viewing the novels in light of the existentialist philosophies of Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Albert Camus.

Throughout the twentieth century, authors from Latin American countries have contributed some of the freshest and most original works to world literature. Foremost among these contributions are the works of the Latin American vanguardists, to whom this bibliography serves as a research guide. Rather than listing everything ever written by and about the vanguardists, this volume narrows its focus to a fundamental 15 year period, 1920 through 1935, and selects, assesses, and annotates both primary and secondary materials from those years. Secondary materials published since 1935 are also included as part of the listings. The guide is organized in four major parts. An introductory essay is first, formulating a multi-national working synthesis of vanguardism in Latin America and providing a conceptual background for the bibliographic listings. This is followed by a general list that is an annotated gathering of critical and bibliographic materials that documents and supports the multi-national approach established in the introduction. It offers a detailed overview of the general material available on vanguardism. The largest of the sections is the national lists, which provide categorized information on vanguardist groups, major figures, individual works, and literary journals, organized in a geographic framework. Both the general and national lists divide sources into those of the 1920-1935 time period and those critical studies written since 1935. The entries in these sections follow standard bibliographic formats, with titles maintained in their original languages and annotations in English. The volume concludes with a detailed, cross-referenced index that utilizes the unique designating numbers assigned in the bibliographic listings. For courses in Latin American and twentieth century literature, this work will be an essential reference source, and both public and academic libraries will certainly find it to be a valuable addition to their collections.

David Daiches (1912-2005) was the first Professor of English at the University of Sussex. His distinguished career over more than half a century encompassed Universities on both sides of the Atlantic. His publications were prolific, extending to over one hundred books, three hundred articles, media and television, plus recordings. This Celebration of His Life and Work will include essays on his literary achievements in the areas of Scottish Literature, the Novel, Poetry and New/Historical Criticism and the American connection, and the academic as populariser, by distinguished scholars and critics. The book will appeal to historians of twentieth century literary and cultural criticism, the History of twentieth-century Universities, students of Scottish and American Literature, and the relationship between the academic and journalism in the twentieth century.

That Ezra Pound was the chief architect of Modernism in English and American poetry is well established. So, too, is the fact that in T. S. Eliot he discovered a peer, whose early career he fostered. Together, Pound and Eliot defined what Modern Poetry meant. But they also had peers in two great Irish writers: Yeats in poetry and Joyce in fiction. With them, they were major shapers of the Modernist style. The Age of Modernism was dominated by American and Irish writers who took part in reshaping the English literary tradition in the twentieth century. "Ezra Pound and Modernism" was the topic of the 25th Ezra Pound International Conference in Dublin in July of 2013, and the papers selected for this volume clearly demonstrate that.Modernism had both American and Irish roots. Modernism in English literature had its origins in the work of Irish and American writers. Pound was the chief advocate of a new literary style in English, which the writings of Yeats, Joyce, and T. S. Eliot would articulate. Ulysses and The Waste Land, published in the same year, 1922, would become its complex masterpieces, still challenging readers after nearly a century, and still unsurpassed.

Acknowledged as an original and important voice in American letters, Ann Beattie published her first short story at age twenty-five in 1972. Four years later, she issued her first short-story collection and first novel concurrently. This volume brings together book reviews, criticism, interviews, biographical materials, and bibliography spanning the entire corpus of Beattie's fiction to date---five short-story collections and four novels published through 1991. The editor's introduction analyzes the various critical stances, both positive and negative, informed also by her own 1992 interview with Beattie, which appears as the final selection. Newly commissioned essays supplement the reviews, articles, and earlier interviews to bring a wide range of contemporary theory to bear on the fiction. An extensive primary and secondary bibliography complete the work.

This comprehensive, detailed study of Wilder's entire dramatic oeuvre is the only one to place the works in their broad aesthetic and philosophical context and to integrate literary analysis of the plays with interpretation of their theatrical techniques. Its sources include Gilbert Harrison's "authorized" 1983 biography of the dramatist and the published selections from Wilder's journals for the years 1939-1961, as well as unpublished material--letters, diaries, and notes--in the Yale Collection of American Literature Wilder papers. Lifton discusses the symbolist, naturalist, expressionist, Brechtian, futurist, Pirandellian, and existentialist elements in Wilder's plays, as well as parallels between Wilder's theatre and that of such diverse cultures as the classical Greek and Roman, medieval European, Elizabethan, Renaissance Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese.

This original and incisive study of the fiction of Jean Rhys, Jamaica Kincaid and Toni Morrison uses cutting edge cultural and literary theory to examine the "knotted" mother-daughter relations that form the thematic basis of the texts examined. Using both close reading and contextualization, the analyses are focused through issues of race and contemporary theorizing of whiteness and trauma. Remarkably eloquent, scholarly and thought-provoking, this book contributes strongly to the broad fields of literary criticism, feminist theory and whiteness studies.

In the run-up to, during and after the invasion of Iraq a large number of literary texts addressing that context were produced, circulated and viewed as taking a position for or against the invasion, or contributing political insights. This book provides an in-depth survey of such texts to examine what they reveal about the condition of literature.

Today's Latino poetry scene is bursting at the seams. While Latino poetry has played an important role in establishing Latino letters, surprisingly only a few scholars have spent time analyzing its form. The first of its kind, Formal Matters in Contemporary Latino Poetry pulls back the curtain on how the poets Julia Alvarez, Rhina Espaillat, Rafael Campo, and C. Dale Young use formal structures such as meter, rhyme, and line break to affect our perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about the world we inhabit. With original interviews, this imaginative book explores how these poets add something to reality with their creations.