Published in association with the seminar series of the same name held by the University of Oxford, "Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies" presents the best new scholarship addressing the sources, development and ongoing influence of Samuel Beckett's work. Edited by convenors Dr Peter Fifield and Dr David Addyman, the volume presents ten research essays by leading international scholars ranging across Beckett's work, opening up new avenues of enquiry and association for scholars, students and readers of Beckett's work.Among the subjects covered the volume includes studies of: -Beckett and the influence of new media 1956-1960-the influence of silent film on Beckett's work-death, loss and Ireland in Beckett's drama - tracing Irish references in Beckett's plays from the 1950s and 1960s, including" Endgame," "All That Fall," " Krapp's Last Tape" and "Eh Joe"-a consideration of Beckett's theatrical notebooks and annotated copies of his plays which provide a unique insight into his attitude toward the staging of his plays, the ways he himself interpreted his texts and approached theatrical practice.-the French text of the novel "Mercier et Camier," which both biographically and aesthetically appeared at a very significant moment in Beckett's career and indicates a crucial development in his writing-the matter of tone in Beckett's drama, offering a new reading of the ways in which this elusive property emerges and can be read in the relationship between published text, canon and performance

Early twentieth-century Indian novels often depict the harsh material conditions of life under British colonial rule. Even so, these 'realist' novels are profoundly imaginative. In this study, Ulka Anjaria challenges the distinction between early twentieth-century social realism and modern-day magical realism, arguing that realism in the colony functioned as a mode of experimentation and aesthetic innovation - not merely as mimesis of the 'real world'. By examining novels from the 1930s across several Indian languages, Anjaria reveals how Indian authors used realist techniques to imagine alternate worlds, to invent new subjectivities and relationships with the Indian nation and to question some of the most entrenched values of modernity. Addressing issues of colonialism, Indian nationalism, the rise of Gandhi, religion and politics, and the role of literature in society, Anjaria's careful analysis will complement graduate study and research in English literature, South Asian studies and postcolonial studies.

This collection of essays analyzes global depictions of the devil from theological, Biblical, and literary perspectives, spanning the late Middle Ages to the 21st century. The chapters explore demonic representations in the literary works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Dante Alighieri, Charles Baudelaire, John Milton, H.P. Lovecraft, and Cormac McCarthy, among others. The text examines other media such as the operas Orfeo and Erminia sul Giordano and the television shows Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and Mad Men. The Hermeneutics of Hell, featuring an international set of established and up-and-coming authors, masterfully examines the evolution of the devil from the Biblical accounts of the Middle Ages to the individualized presence of the modern world.

Ervin has brought together 16 reviews and 26 essays that chronicle the literary reception of Ann Petry and her three novels in America from 1946 to the present. Collectively and individually, all of the reviews and essays gauge the historical, cultural, social, political, literary aesthetic, and theoretical depths of Petry's novels. While specific essays will offer overviews of Petry's life and works, others will name literary influences, explore and evaluate her style and structure, identify her aesthetic positions as a writer and novelist, and define her positions in larger discussions of the male and female in general and the African American female in particular. Teachers, students, critics, and others will appreciate this volume. Select reviews and essays provide an overview of Petry's life and works, style, and literary position as a novelist, while other reviews and essays present her as a writer of community, cultural traditions, literary traditions, and characters. As a social critic, she speaks for the voiceless and the maligned; her criticism is sympathic, yet frank and honest. She speaks to and for men and women, rich and poor, young and old.

The literature of the second half of the twentieth century is characterised by a tension between conservatism and innovation. This volume examines the key writers and genres that explore this idea, including the postmodern novels of Julian Barnes, Angela Carter and Graham Swift, the modern lyrics of Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath and Stevie Smith, and the inventive dramas of Samuel Beckett, Caryl Churchill and Tom Stoppard. Chapters focussing on "Nostalgia and Nationality," "Class and Education" and "Sex and Identity" provide important historical and social context, and combine with a range of key critical approaches to provide an indispensable guide to the era.

Early Modern Black Diaspora Studies brings into conversation two fields-Early Modern Studies and Black Studies-that traditionally have had little to say to each other. This disconnect is the product of current scholarly assumptions about a lack of archival evidence that limits what we can say about those of African descent before modernity. This volume posits that the limitations are not in the archives, but in the methods we have constructed for locating and examining those archives. The essays that make up this volume offer new critical approaches to black African agency and the conceptualization of blackness in early modern literary works, historical documents, material and visual cultures, and performance culture. Ultimately, this critical anthology revises current understandings about racial discourse and the cultural contributions of black Africans in early modernity and in the present across the globe.

This comprehensive volume contains all Sylvia Plath's mature poetry written from 1956 up to her death in 1963. The poems are drawn from the only collection Plath published while alive, The Colossus, as well as from posthumous collections Ariel, Crossing the Water and Winter Trees. The text is preceded by an introduction by Ted Hughes and followed by notes and comments on individual poems. There is also an appendix containing fifty poems from Sylvia Plath's juvenilia. This collection was awarded the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. 'For me, the most important literary event of 1981 has been the publication, eighteen years after her death, of Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems, confirming her as one of the most powerful and lavishly gifted poets of our time.' A. Alvarez in the Observer

What does it mean for a play to be political in the 21st century? Does it require explicit engagement with events and situations with the aim of bringing about change or highlighting social wrongs? Is it purely a matter of content or is it also a matter of structure? The Contemporary Political Play: Rethinking Dramaturgical Structure examines the politics of contemporary 'political' drama. It traces the origins of the contemporary British political play to the emergence of the idea of 'serious drama' in the late 19th century through the work of Bernard Shaw, and argues that a Shavian version of serious drama was inextricably linked to the social and political structures of British society at the time. While political drama is still often thought of as adhering to a Shavian model in which social issues are presented through a dialectical structure, Grochala argues that the different political structures of contemporary Britain give rise to formally inventive dramaturgies that are no less 'serious' or political than their Shavian forebears. Through analysing the experimental dramaturgies of contemporary plays by playwrights including Caryl Churchill, Simon Stephens, Anthony Neilson, debbie tucker green and Mark Ravenhill, among others, it offers a set of new principles for understanding how a play functions politically and reveals how today the dramaturgical structure of a play is as political as its content.

This book examines the representation of dictators and dictatorships in African fiction. It examines how the texts clarify the origins of postcolonial dictatorships and explore the shape of the democratic-egalitarian alternatives. The first chapter explains the 'neoliberal' period after the 1970s as an effective 'recolonization' of Africa by Western states and international financial institutions. Dictatorship is theorised as a form of concentrated economic and political power that facilitates Africa's continued dependency in the context of world capitalism. The deepest aspiration of anti-colonial revolution remains the democratization of these authoritarian states inherited from the colonial period. This book discusses four novels by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Ahmadou Kourouma, Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in order to reveal how their themes and forms dramatize this unfinished struggle between dictatorship and radical democracy.

In such novels as Hotel World and the Whitbread Prize winning The Accidental, Ali Smith has established herself as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary fiction. Covering her complete oeuvre, from the short stories to her most recent novel There but for the, this is the first comprehensive critical guide to Smith's work. Bringing together leading scholars, Ali Smith: Contemporary Critical Perspectives covers such topics as: * Language, truth and reality * Spectral presences and the uncanny * Gender and sexuality * Cosmopolitanism * Smith's place in the contemporary canon Including a new interview with the author, a chronology of her life and authoritative guides to further reading, this is an essential guide for anyone interested in the best of contemporary fiction.

The animals that appear in Samuel Beckett's work are diverse and unpredictable. They serve as victim and persecutor, companion and adversary, disconcerting observers and objects oblivious to the human gaze. Bringing together an international array of Beckett specialists, this is the first full-length study to explore the significance of the animals that populate Beckett's prose, drama and poetry. Essays theorise a broad spectrum of animal manifestations while focusing on the roles that distinct animal forms play within Beckett's work, including horses, sheep, cats, dogs, bees, insects and others. Contributors situate close readings within a larger literary and cultural context, drawing on thinkers ranging from Aristotle to Deleuze, Foucault and Agamben, and on authors such as Flaubert, Kafka and Coetzee. The result is an incisive and provocative collection that traverses disciplinary boundaries, revealing how Beckett's creatures challenge conventional notions of species identity and, ultimately, what it means to be human.

This book provides a concise and highly readable reassessment of Iris Murdoch's engagement with philosophy throughout her life and proposes that she was, most importantly, a philosophical novelist. By investigating her use of philosophical argument in her fictional writing, it becomes clear that her narratives always depend upon a strong metaphysical underpinning. Leeson proceeds thematically through the philosophical phases of Murdoch's life and develops a clear argument that Murdoch reacts against the philosophies of Sartre, Plato, Nietzsche and Heidegger not only in her philosophical writings but also in her fiction. Indeed, it is in her fiction that her philosophical argument is most persuasive and accessible. This timely study provides new information regarding Murdoch's engagement with Martin Heidegger and also provides a detailed critique of critics who have overlooked Murdoch's engagement with philosophy within her fiction.

This collection of interviews demonstrates that U.S. Latinas/os of South American background have contributed pioneering work to U.S. Latina/o literature and culture in the twenty-first century. In conversation with twelve significant authors of South American descent in the United States, Juanita Heredia reveals that, through their transnational experiences, they have developed multicultural identities throughout different regions and cities across the country. However, these authors' works also exemplify a return to their heritage in South America through memory and travel, often showing that they maintain strong cultural and literary ties across national borders. As such, they have created a new chapter in trans-American history by finding new ways of imagining South America from their formation and influences in the U.S.

Salman Rushdie and the Genesis of Secrecy is the first book to draw extensively from material in the Salman Rushdie archive at Emory University to uncover the makings of the British-Indian writer's modernist poetics. Simultaneously connecting Rushdie with radical non-Western humanism and an essentially English-European sensibility, and therefore questions about world literature, this book argues that a true understanding of the writer lies in uncovering his 'genesis of secrecy' through a close reading of his archive. Topics and materials explored include unpublished novels, plays and screenplays; the earlier versions and drafts of Midnight's Children and its adaptations; understanding Islam and The Satanic Verses; the influence of cinema; and Rushdie's turn to earlier archives as the secret codes of modernism. Through careful examination of Rushdie's archive, Vijay Mishra demonstrates how Rushdie combines a radically new form of English with a familiarity with the generic registers of Indian, Arabic and Persian literary forms. Together, these present a contradictory orientalism that defines Rushdie's own humanism within the parameters of world literature.

This book offers a radical new reading of the 1950s and 60s American literary counterculture. Associated nostalgically with freedom of expression, romanticism, humanist ideals and progressive politics, the period was steeped too in opposite ideas - ideas that doubted human perfectibility, spurned the majority for a spiritually elect few, and had their roots in earlier politically reactionary avant-gardes. Through case studies of icons in the counterculture - the controversial sexual revolutionary Henry Miller, Beat Generation writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs and self-proclaimed 'philosopher of hip', Norman Mailer - Guy Stevenson explores a set of paradoxes at its centre: between romantic optimism and modernist pessimism; between brutal rhetoric and emancipatory desires; and between social egalitarianism and spiritual elitism. Such paradoxes, Stevenson argues, help explain the cultural and political worlds these writers shaped - in their time and beyond.

This volume provides a critical introduction to eight landmark novels in 19th- and 20th-century French literature, including The Plague, Madame Bovary, and The Little Prince. Timeless literary masterpieces-such as Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and The Miserables (1862), Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857), and Camus' The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947)-have been the subject of copious literary criticism since their publications. This volume has been developed specifically to help students and general readers reach a deeper understanding of eight French novels, enabling them to develop a true appreciation for why the works have been regarded as masterpieces. Lucid yet challenging literary analysis focuses on plot and character development, themes, style, and biographical and historical context. This guide offers a fuller sense of the historical and literary environment in which each author worked. Librarians and educators were consulted in determining which eight novels to include. In addition to those listed above, full treatment is given to Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, and the perennially popular tale The Little Prince. These eight works cover a time period of more than 100 years, reflecting the development of the French novel and the literary movements of this era. An introductory essay provides a concise overview of French literature through the 1800's and early 1900's, identifying additional seminal works beyond those fully discussed here. For readers desiring to pursue further research, an extensive bibliography has been compiled, offering sources for additional novels, criticism, reviews from the time of publication, and biographical information.

The 1990s have seen a renaissance in short fiction studies. Today's short story writers are testing the boundaries of short fiction through minimalist works; extended short story cycles; narrative nonfiction forms, such as histories, memoirs, and essays; and even stories created interactively with readers on the computer. Short story critics, in turn, are viewing the short story from the perspective of genre, history, cultural studies, and even cognitive science. This volume brings together the opinions, theories, and research of many of today's best-known short story writers, theorists, and critics. Contributors include some of the most widely read contemporary authors, such as Joyce Carol Oates, John Barth, Gay Talese, W. P. Kinsella, Robert Coover, Barry Hannah, and Leslie Marmon Silko.

The authors and scholars who have contributed to the volume provide an entertaining and informative exploration of modern short fiction. The volume traces the origins of the short story back to Chaucer, the joke, and the instinct for play, and follows the development of the form through today's hyper-stories created interactively in cyberspace. Along the way, it presents essays on miminalism in short fiction, on the transformation of short stories into films, and even on AIDS and the short story. The broad scope of the volume includes a wide variety of critical approaches brought to bear on literature from around the world, including short stories from Africa, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.

With the publication of her first book, The Little House in the Big Woods (1932), Laura Ingalls Wilder became an almost overnight success as a writer of children's literature. This reference is a comprehensive compilation of works and research done on her from the first appearance of commentary to mid-1995. Citations are included for books, booklets, articles, theses, dissertations, and book reviews, and the annotations discuss the contents of these works. Entries are grouped in chapters devoted to critical works, biographical works, teaching studies and materials, teaching kits, serial publications, and book reviews. A brief introduction overviews the present state of Wilder studies, and detailed indexes conclude the volume. With the publication of her first book, The Little House in the Big Woods (1932), Laura Ingalls Wilder became an almost overnight success as a writer of children's literature. Her series of books consisting of autobiographical fiction have long been considered classics in the United States and have been translated into a large number of languages for their gradual migration into other countries as well. Early book reviews and articles began to comment on the importance and quality of her writings. The amount of criticism has escalated tremendously, and recent research and study have focused on the value of her works for all age groups. Because of Wilder's popularity as a children's author, her works are taught in schools and curriculum units have been designed to incorporate her writings. This reference book provides a comprehensive compilation of works and research done on Wilder from the first appearance of commentary to mid-1995. Included are citations for books, booklets, theses, dissertations, articles, and book reviews, and the annotations discuss the contents of the works. Entries are arranged in several sections to promote useful access to the materials. A brief introduction provides an overview of Wilder studies and indicates some areas where more research is needed, and several indexes enhance the accessibility of the information.

An exploration of the legacy of The Waste Land on the centenary of its original publication, looking at the impact it had had upon criticism and new poetries across one hundred years. T. S. Eliot first published his long poem The Waste Land in 1922. The revolutionary nature of the work was immediately recognised, and it has subsequently been acknowledged as one of the most influential poems of the twentieth century, and as crucial for the understanding of modernism. The essays in this collection variously reflect on The Waste Land one hundred years after its original publication. At this centenary moment, the contributors both celebrate the richness of the work, its sounds and rare use of language, and also consider the poem's legacy in Britain, Ireland, and India. The work here, by an international team of writers from the UK, North America, and India, deploys a range of approaches. Some contributors seek to re-read the poem itself in fresh and original ways; others resist the established drift of previous scholarship on the poem, and present new understandings of the process of its development through its drafts, or as an orchestration on the page. Several contributors question received wisdom about the poem's immediate legacy in the decade after publication, and about the impact that it has had upon criticism and new poetries across the first century of its existence. An Introduction to the volume contextualises the poem itself, and the background to the essays. All pieces set out to review the nature of our understanding of the poem, and to bring fresh eyes to its brilliance, one hundred years on. Contributors: Rebecca Beasley, Rosinka Chaudhuri, William Davies, Hugh Haughton, Marjorie Perloff, Andrew Michael Roberts, Peter Robinson, Michael Wood.

European colonization played a major role in the acquisition, formation, and destruction of different ways of knowing. Recently, many scholars and activists have come to ask: Are there ways in which knowledge might be decolonized? Epistemic Decolonization examines a variety of such projects from a critical and philosophical perspective. The book introduces the unfamiliar reader to the wide variety of approaches to the topic at hand, providing concrete examples along the way. It argues that the predominant contemporary approach to epistemic decolonization leads one into various intractable theoretical and practical problems. The book then closely investigates the political and scientific work of Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral, demonstrating how their philosophical commitments can help lead one out of the practical and theoretical issues faced by the current, predominant orientation, and concludes by forging links between their work and that of some contemporary feminist epistemologists.

Children's literature continues to receive growing scholarly attention, and this is due, in part, to the increased awareness of the complexity of these works and their importance in the curriculum. While some books may become classics and continue to be read long after their publication, others are the product of contemporary society and reflect the changing values of modern American culture. So, too, those titles that have been singled out for recognition reveal the standards of awards committees. This reference is a guide to works of American children's fiction that have won awards between 1995 and 1999.

Some of the books were published before that period, and thus their recent recognition affirms their enduring value. Included are more than 750 alphabetically arranged entries for authors, titles, characters, and settings related to nearly 250 books. Entries for novels provide plot summaries and critical commentary, while those for authors give biographical information. The volume demonstrates the growing number of multicultural novels and books about nontraditional families, while it also shows the continuing importance of historical fiction and the waning appeal of traditional adventure novels. While the volume will be valuable to librarians and teachers and to scholars of children's literature, it will also be useful to anyone interested in these works as a commentary on American culture at the close of the twentieth century.

In this book, Jessica Berman claims that modernist fiction engages directly with early twentieth-century transformations of community and cosmopolitanism. Although modernist writers develop radically different models for social organization, their writings return again and again to issues of commonality and shared voice, particularly in relation to dominant discourses of gender and nationality. The writings of Henry James, Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, and Gertrude Stein not only inscribe early twentieth-century anxieties about race, ethnicity, nationality and gender, but confront them with demands for modern, cosmopolitan versions of community.

In her spare, stark style, Annie Ernaux documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion. Blurring the line between fact and fiction, an unnamed narrator attempts to plot the emotional and physical course of her two-year relationship with a married foreigner where every word, event, and person either provides a connection with her beloved or is subject to her cold indifference. With courage and exactitude, she seeks the truth behind an existence lived entirely for someone else, and, in the pieces of its aftermath, she is able to find it.

This book introduces "Heart of Darkness" through its key characters - an ideal framework for students looking to develop an advanced understanding of the text.Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (1899) is one of the most important literary works of the early twentieth century. It has provoked much critical debate, on issues such as fin de siecle doubt and pessimism, European colonialism, racism, and misogyny. Engaging with the novel's characters is crucial to understanding its complexity and its critical history. This study includes: an overview of the novel, including an account of its late nineteenth-century context; discussions of the narrative structure and the narrators; chapters analysing in detail the key characters in relation to the text's themes, issues and historical context; engagement with a range of literary criticism and theory; a conclusion reminding students of the potential of detailed character analysis and close critical reading; and a guide to secondary texts and a comprehensive bibliography. This is an ideal introduction for students wanting to develop an advanced understanding of Joseph Conrad's challenging novel.The Character Studies aims to promote sophisticated literary analysis through the concept of character. It demonstrates the necessity of linking character analysis to texts' themes, issues and ideas, and encourages students to embrace the complexity of literary characters and the texts in which they appear. The series thus fosters close critical reading and evidence-based discussion, as well as an engagement with historical context, and with literary criticism and theory.Designed for first year students, the series builds on the usual knowledge base of students beginning literary study in HE by focusing on the familiar characters but introducing more sophisticated analysis.

South Asian Writers in Twentieth-Century Britain is the first book to provide a historical account of the publication and reception of South Asian anglophone writing from the 1930s to the present, based on original archival research drawn from a range of publishing houses. This comparison of succeeding generations of writers who emigrated to, or were born in, Britain examines how the experience of migrancy, the attitudes towards migrant writers in the literary market place, and the critical reception of them, changed significantly throughout the twentieth century. Ranasinha shows how the aesthetic, cultural, and political context changed significantly for each generation, producing radically different kinds of writing and transforming the role of the postcolonial writer of South Asian origin.
The extensive use of original materials from publishers' archives shows how shifting political, academic, and commercial agendas in Britain and North America influenced the selection, content, presentation, and consumption of many of these texts. The differences between writers of different generations can thus in part be understood in terms of the different demands of their publishers and expectations of readers in each decade. Writers from different generations are paired accordingly in each chapter: Nirad Chaudhuri (1897-1999) with Tambimuttu (1915-83); Ambalavener Sivanandan (born 1923) with Kamala Markandaya (born 1924); Salman Rushdie (born 1947) with Farrukh Dhondy (born 1944); and Hanif Kureishi (born 1954) with Meera Syal (born 1963). Raja Rao, Mulk Raj Anand, Attia Hosain, V.S Naipaul, and Aubrey Menen are also discussed.