Digital Modernism examines how and why some of the most innovative works of online electronic literature adapt and allude to literary modernism. Digital literature has been celebrated as a postmodern form that grows out of contemporary technologies, subjectivities, and aesthetics, but this book provides an alternative genealogy. Exemplary cases show electronic literature looking back to modernism for inspiration and source material (in content, form, and ideology) through which to critique contemporary culture. In so doing, this literature renews and reframes, rather than rejects, a literary tradition that it also reconfigures to center around media. To support her argument, Pressman pairs modernist works by Pound, Joyce, and Bob Brown, with major digital works like William Poundstone's "Project for the Tachistoscope: [Bottomless Pit]" (2005), Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries's Dakota, and Judd Morrissey's The Jew's Daughter. With each pairing, she demonstrates how the modernist movement of the 1920s and 1930s laid the groundwork for the innovations of electronic literature. In sum, the study situates contemporary digital literature in a literary genealogy in ways that rewrite literary history and reflect back on literature's past, modernism in particular, to illuminate the crucial role that media played in shaping the ambitions and practices of that period.

When Franz Kafka died in 1924, his loyal friend and champion Max Brod could not bring himself to fulfil Kafka's last instruction: to burn his remaining manuscripts. Instead, Brod devoted the rest of his life to canonizing Kafka as the most prescient chronicler of the twentieth century. By betraying Kafka's last wish, Brod twice rescued his legacy - first from physical destruction, and then from obscurity. But that betrayal was also eventually to lead to an international legal battle over Kafka's legacy: as a writer in German, should his papers come to rest with those of the other great German writers, in the country where his three sisters died as victims of the Holocaust? Or, as Kafka was also a great Jewish writer, should they be considered part of the cultural inheritance of Israel, a state that did not exist at the time he died in 1924? Alongside an acutely observed portrait of Kafka and Brod and the influential group of writers and intellectuals known as the Prague Circle, Kafka's Last Trial also provides a gripping account of the recent series of Israeli court cases - cases that addressed dilemmas legal, ethical, and political - that determined the final fate of the manuscripts Brod had rescued when he fled from Prague to Palestine in 1939. It tells of a wrenching escape from Nazi invaders as the gates of Europe closed to Jews; of a love affair between exiles stranded in Tel Aviv; and of two countries whose national obsessions with overcoming the traumas of the past came to a head in the Israeli courts. Ultimately, Benjamin Balint invites us to question not only whether Kafka's legacy belongs by right to the country of his language, that of his birth, or that of his cultural and religious affinities - but also whether any nation state can lay claim to writers who belong more naturally to the international republic of letters.

Myth is oral, collective, sacred, and timeless. Fantasy is a modern literary mode and a popular entertainment. Yet the two have always been inextricably intertwined. Stories about Stories examines fantasy as an arena in which different ways of understanding myth compete and new relationships with myth are worked out. The book offers a comprehensive history of the modern fantastic as well as an argument about its nature and importance. Specific chapters cover the origins of fantasy in the Romantic search for localized myths, fantasy versions of the Modernist turn toward the primitive, the post-Tolkienian exploration of world mythologies, post-colonial reactions to the exploitation of indigenous sacred narratives by Western writers, fantasies based in Christian belief alongside fundamentalist attempts to stamp out the form, and the emergence of ever-more sophisticated structures such as metafiction through which to explore mythic constructions of reality.

Classical Traditions in Modern Fantasy is the first collection of essays in English focusing on how fantasy draws deeply on ancient Greek and Roman mythology, philosophy, literature, history, art, and cult practice. Presenting fifteen all-new essays intended for both scholars and other readers of fantasy, this volume explores many of the most significant examples of the modern genre-including the works of H. P. Lovecraft, J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones series, and more-in relation to important ancient texts such as Aeschylus' Oresteia, Aristotle's Poetics, Virgil's Aeneid, and Apuleius' The Golden Ass. These varied studies raise fascinating questions about genre, literary and artistic histories, and the suspension of disbelief required not only of readers of fantasy but also of students of antiquity. Ranging from harpies to hobbits, from Cyclopes to Cthulhu, and all manner of monster and myth in-between, this comparative study of Classics and fantasy reveals deep similarities between ancient and modern ways of imagining the world. Although antiquity and the present day differ in many ways, at its base, ancient literature resonates deeply with modern fantasy's image of worlds in flux and bodies in motion.

Koch's A History of South African Literature: Afrikaans Literature, Part 2 is an extensive and thorough study of the development of Afrikaans literature during the first three decades of the 20th century. It follows Part 1, in which the earlier origins of Afrikaans and Afrikaans literature as well as the local Dutch writings tradition were discussed. Koch uses the metaphor of mapping to describe the work of the historiographer, and it becomes clear that his study analyses the literary texts within the context of space and time. Accordingly, it includes information on the authors' lives and times as well as the developments in Afrikaans literature, criticism and literary historiography. The exposition starts with the origin and development of the Afrikaans language during the so-called 'Second Language Movement'. Koch also describes the polemics between historians emphasising the 'spontaneous development' of Afrikaans from Dutch and those regarding it as a creole language; his balanced conclusion is that neither of the two groups can lay absolute claim to the truth. The interest of the book is heightened by the inclusion of texts written in Dutch, as Koch discussed in Part 1, and also works which are not 'literary' in the strict sense of the word, like war diaries. These are discussed not primarily for their literary value but for the insights they provide into the effect of the Anglo-Boer War on the formation of Afrikaner identity. It confirms that this literary history does not isolate the development of Afrikaans literature from the development of Afrikaner ideology and identity. This is followed by the two main parts of the study: a discussion of the literary works of the 'first generation' (Celliers, Totius and Leipoldt) and those of the 'writers of the twenties' (Toon van den Heever, A G Visser, C J Langenhoven and Eugene Marais). Jerzy Koch is professor in the Department of Dutch and South African Studies, Faculty of English, at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, research fellow at the Free State University, Bloemfontein, and extraordinary professor at Stellenbosch University. He is an acclaimed translator of Dutch and Afrikaans literature into Polish and has published widely on Dutch and post-colonial literature.

Since the work of Edward Said first appeared, countless studies have shown the ways in which Western writers--sometimes unwittingly--participate in the oversimplified East/West dichotomy of Orientalism. Yet no study has considered how writers from the so-called Orient approach this idea. A wide-ranging survey of the vast and diverse world of Anglophone Arab literature, Immigrant Narratives examines the complex ways in which Arab emigres contend with, resist, and participate in the problems of Orientalism.
Hassan's account begins in the early twentieth century, as he considers the pioneering Lebanese American writers, Ameen Rihani and Kahlil Gibran. The former's seminal novel, The Book of Khalid sought to fuse Arabic and European literary traditions in search of a civilizational synthesis, whereas the latter found success by mixing Hindu, Christian, mystical, and English Romantic ideas into a popular spiritualism. Hassan then considers Arab immigrant life-writing, ranging from autobiographies by George Haddad and Abraham Rihbany to memoirs of exile by the Egyptian-born Leila Ahmed and Palestinian refugees like Fawaz Turki and Edward Said. Hassan considers issues of representation in looking to how Arab immigrant writers like Ramzi Salti and Rabih Alameddine use homosexuality to reflect on Arab typecasting. Ahdaf Soueif's fiction reflects her growing awareness of the politics of reception of Anglophone Arab women writers while Leila Aboulela's fiction, inspired by an immigrant Islamic perspective, depicts the predicament of the Muslim minority in Britain.
Drawing upon postcolonial, translation, and minority discourse theory, Immigrant Narratives investigates how key writers have described their immigrant experiences, acting as mediators and interpreters between cultures, and how they have forged new identities in their adopted countries."

First published in 2001, Achille Mbembe's landmark book, On the postcolony, continues to renew our understanding of power and subjectivity in Africa. This edition has been updated with a foreword by professor of African literature, Isabel Hofmeyr, and a preface by the author. In a series of provocative essays, Mbembe contests die hard Africanist and nativist perspectives as well as some of the key assumptions of postcolonial theory. Through his provocation, the `banality of power', Mbembe reinterprets the meanings of death, utopia and the divine libido as part of the new theoretical perspectives he offers on the constitution of power in Africa. He works with the complex registers of bodily subjectivity - violence, wonder and laughter - to contest categories of oppression and resistance, autonomy and subjection, and state and civil society that marked the social theory of the late twentieth century. On the postcolony, like Frantz Fanon's Black skins, white masks, will remain a text of profound importance in the discourse of anticolonial and anti-imperial struggles.

Die eerste uitgawe van Die keer toe ek my naam vergeet het verskyn in 1995, vyf jaar nadat die skrywer F.A. Venter ’n beroerte gekry het. In hierdie outobiografiese vertelling dokumenteer hy die pynlike en stadige proses van herstel: hy moet weer leer loop, leer praat, leer skryf. Dit is verder ’n verhaal oor die verhouding tussen Venter en sy geliefde vrou, Stella. In Die Afrikaanse literatuur 1652–2004 beskryf J.C. Kannemeyer Die keer toe ek my naam vergeet het as een van Venter se “belangrikste bydraes tot die Afrikaanse prosa”: “Die aangrypende verhaal van ouderdom en lyding, maar ook van ’n mooi huwelik en toegewyde liefde, is terselfdertyd ’n getuienis van die onblusbare gees van die skeppende mens wat, ten spyte van alle teenspoed, kan voortgaan met die werk waarvoor hy hier op aarde geplaas is.” Op ’n eerlike en roerende wyse, en met ’n tikkie humor, raak Venter die universele, tydlose temas van siekte, oudword en die dood aan. Uiteindelik is dit ’n verhaal van aanvaarding: “Ek het baie verloor – die kosbaarste. Maar ek het ook geleer om te verduur. Te aanvaar. Tevrede te wees. Anders sou dit ondraaglik wees.”

L.M.Montgomery grew up in Prince Edward Island, a real place of "politics and potatoes." But it's her fictional island, a richly textured imaginative landscape that has captivated a world of readers since 1908, when Anne of Green Gables became the first of Montgomery's long string of bestsellers. In this wide-ranging and highly readable book, Elizabeth Waterston uses the term "magic" to suggest that peculiar, indefinable combination of attributes that unpredictably results in creative genius. Montgomery's intelligence, her drive, and her sense of humour are essential components of this success. Waterston also features what Montgomery called her "dream life," a "strange inner life of fancy which had always existed side by side with my outer life." This special ability to look beyond the veil, to access vibrant inner vistas, produced deceptively layered fictions out of a life that saw not just its share of both fame and ill fortune, but also what Waterston calls "dark passions." A true reader's guide, Magic Island explores the world of L.M. Montgomery in a way never done before. Each chapter of Magic Island discusses a different Montgomery book, following their progression chronologically. Waterston draws parallels between Montgomery's internal "island," her personal life, her professional career, and the characters in her novels. Designed to be read alongside the new biography of Montgomery by Mary Rubio, this is the first book to reinterpret Montgomery's writing in light of important new information about her life. A must-read for any Montgomery fan, Magic Island offers a fresh and insightful look at the world of L.M. Montgomery and the "magic" of artistic creation.

Mazo de la Roche leaped to prominence as one of the most successful writers of the twentieth century when the first novel in her Whiteoaks of Jalna series won the Atlantic Monthly Prize in 1927. The award was hailed not only as a triumph for Mazo but as marking the coming of age of Canadian literature. Therefore her popularity, which earned her a luxurious life-style that included baronial manors in the English countryside, a retinue of devoted servants, and a fondness for world travel, abated only with her death in 1961. The centre of her life was her overwhelming love for her cousin, Caroline Clement, whom she adopted as a sister and who was her life-long companion, soulmate, and muse. The core of their existence was a secret unwritten play-endlessly changing and growing-that they acted out from the moment they met almost to the end of their lives. In this insightful biography Joan Givner has recovered the hidden life of Mazo de la Roche.

York Notes Advanced offer a fresh and accessible approach to English Literature. This market-leading series has been completely updated to meet the needs of today's A-level and undergraduate students. Written by established literature experts, York Notes Advanced intorduce students to more sophisticated analysis, a range of critical perspectives and wider contexts.

Digression is widely considered a mark of disordered or evasive discourse. Modern legal, philosophical, and political writing largely disavows this trope, regarding it as a departure from the model of rational exposition institutionalized under the Enlightenment. And yet, as the rhetorical figure of digression has grown increasingly marginalized within the decorum of public discourse, it has come to occupy a central position in the private discursive world of poetry. Changing Subjects outlines an anatomy of 'the excursus' within twentieth-century American poetics; moving from aesthetics to the archive to narratology to theories of identity, this study considers the various spheres in which American writers of the period revise prior models of purposeful discourse by cultivating a poetics of digression in the modern poem. The opening section considers the manner in which Wallace Stevens employs digression within the ars poetica genre to deconstruct aesthetic theory under High Modernism; the second chapter examines Marianne Moore's use of the excursus to organize archival knowledge in the Progressive poetry of instruction; the third section turns to Lyn Hejinian's construction of a digressive narratology intended to unsettle master-narratives of the Cold War era; the fourth chapter treats digression as a strategy for fashioning the self in the poetry of Walt Whitman and Frank O'Hara; and the book concludes with a survey of "Elliptical" strategies employed by a new generation of poets, writing in the wake of John Ashbery's aleatory craft, who seek to extend the digressive project of American poetry into the 21st Century.

Mining the borderlands where history meets literature in Britain and Europe as well as America, this book shows how the imminence and outbreak of World War II ignited the imaginations of writers ranging from Ernest Hemingway, W.H. Auden, and James Joyce to Bertolt Brecht, Evelyn Waugh, Henry Green, and Irene Nemirovsky. Taking its cue from Percy Shelley's dictum that great writers are to some extent created by the age in which they live, this book shows how much the politics and warfare of the years from 1939 to 1941 drove the literature of this period. Its novels, poems, and plays differ radically from histories of World War II because-besides being works of imagination-- they are largely products of a particular stage in the author's life as well as of a time at which no one knew how the war would end. This is the first comprehensive study of the impact of the outbreak of the Second World War on the literary work of American, English, and European writers during its first years.

The most substantial collection of critical essays on Morrison to appear since her death in mid-2019, this book contains previously unpublished essays which both acknowledge the universal significance of her writing even as they map new directions. Essayists include pre-eminent Morrison scholars, as well as scholars who work in cultural criticism, African American letters, American modernism, and women's writing. The book includes work on Morrison as a public intellectual; work which places Morrison's writing within today's currents of contemporary fiction; work which draws together Morrison's "trilogy" of Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise alongside Dos Passos' USA trilogy; work which links Morrison to such Black Atlantic artists as Lubaina Himid and others as well as work which offers a reading of "influence" that goes both directions between Morrison and Faulkner. Another cluster of essays treats seldom-discussed works by Morrison, including an essay on Morrison as writer of children's books and as speaker for children's education. In addition, a "Teaching Morrison" section is designed to help teachers and critics who teach Morrison in undergraduate classes. The Bloomsbury Handbook to Toni Morrison is wide-ranging, provocative, and satisfying; a fitting tribute to one of the greatest American novelists.

The Mexican Transpacific: Nikkei Writing, Visual Arts, and Performance considers the influence of a Japanese ethnic background or lack thereof in the writing of several twentieth and twenty-first century Mexican authors, directors, and artists. In spite of the unquestionable influence of the Nikkei communities in Mexico's history and culture, and the numerous historical studies recently published on these two communities, the study of their cultural production and, therefore, their self-definition and how they conceive themselves has been, for the most part, overlooked. This book, a continuation of the author's previous research on cultural production by Latin American authors of Asian ancestry, focuses mostly on texts, films, and artworks produced by Asian Mexicans, rather than on the Japanese or Chinese as mere objects of study. However, it will also be contrasted with the representation of Asians by Mexican authors with no Asian ancestry. With this interdisciplinary study, the author hopes to bring to the fore this silenced community's voice and agency to historicize their own experience. The Mexican Transpacific is a much needed contribution to the fields of contemporary Mexican studies, Latin American studies, race and ethnic studies, transnational Asian studies, and Japanese diaspora studies, in light of the theoretical perspectives of cultural studies, the decolonial turn, and postcolonial theory.

The Mexican Transpacific: Nikkei Writing, Visual Arts, and Performance considers the influence of a Japanese ethnic background or lack thereof in the writing of several twentieth and twenty-first century Mexican authors, directors, and artists. In spite of the unquestionable influence of the Nikkei communities in Mexico's history and culture, and the numerous historical studies recently published on these two communities, the study of their cultural production and, therefore, their self-definition and how they conceive themselves has been, for the most part, overlooked. This book, a continuation of the author's previous research on cultural production by Latin American authors of Asian ancestry, focuses mostly on texts, films, and artworks produced by Asian Mexicans, rather than on the Japanese or Chinese as mere objects of study. However, it will also be contrasted with the representation of Asians by Mexican authors with no Asian ancestry. With this interdisciplinary study, the author hopes to bring to the fore this silenced community's voice and agency to historicize their own experience. The Mexican Transpacific is a much needed contribution to the fields of contemporary Mexican studies, Latin American studies, race and ethnic studies, transnational Asian studies, and Japanese diaspora studies, in light of the theoretical perspectives of cultural studies, the decolonial turn, and postcolonial theory.

For most of the 20th century, Latin American literature and art have contested political and cultural projects of homogenization of a manifestly diverse continent. Cultural Antagonism and the Crisis of Reality in Twentieth-Century Latin America explores literary and humanist experimentations and questions of gender, race, and ethnicity as well as the contradictions of capitalist development that belie such homogenization by reconfiguring the sense of the real in Latin America. Covering four key geographical areas, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and the Andes, every chapter delves into a question that has been central to the humanities in the last 20 years: Indigenous world-views, gender, race, neo-liberalism and visual culture. Legras illuminates these issues with a thorough consideration of the theoretical questions inherent to how new identities disrupt the imaginary stability of social formations.

Exploring the potential of poetry and poetic language as a means of conveying perspectives on ageing and later life, this book examines questions such as 'how can we understand ageing and later life?' and 'how can we capture the ambiguities and complexities that the experiences of growing old in time and place entail?' As poetic language illuminates, transfigures and enchants our being in the world, it also offers insights into the existential questions that are amplified as we age, including the vulnerabilities and losses that humble us and connect us. Literary gerontology and narrative gerontology have highlighted the importance of linguistic representations of ageing. While the former has been concerned primarily with the analysis of published literary works, the latter has foregrounded the individual and collective meaning making through narrative resources in old age. There has, however, been less interest in how poetic language, both as a genre and as a practice, can illuminate ageing. This volume suggests a path towards the poetics of ageing by means of presenting analyses of published poetry on ageing written by poets from William Shakespeare to Wallace Stevens; the use of reading and writing poetry among ordinary people in old age; and the poetic nuances that emerge from other literary practices and contexts in relation to ageing - including personal poetic reflections from many of the contributing authors. The volume brings together international scholars from disciplinary backgrounds as diverse as cultural psychology, literary studies, theology, sociology, narrative medicine, cultural gerontology and narrative gerontology, and will deploy a variety of empirical and critical methodologies to explore how poetry and poetic language may challenge dominant discourses and illuminate alternative understandings of ageing.

Bringing together leading voices from across the globe, The Bloomsbury Handbook to Edith Wharton represents state-of-the-art scholarship on the American writer Edith Wharton, once primarily known as a New York novelist. Focusing on Wharton's extensive body of work and renaissance across 21st-century popular culture, chapters consider: - Wharton in the context of queer studies, race studies, whiteness studies, age studies, disability studies, anthropological studies, and economics; - Wharton's achievements in genres for which she deserves to be better known: poetry, drama, the short story, and non-fiction prose; - Comparative studies with Christina Rossetti, Henry James, and Willa Cather; -The places and cultures Wharton documented in her writing, including France, Greece, Italy, and Morocco; - Wharton's work as a reader and writer and her intersections with film and the digital humanities. Book-ended by Dale Bauer and Elaine Showalter, and with a foreword by the Director and senior staff at The Mount, Wharton's historic Massachusetts home, the Handbook underscores Wharton's lasting impact for our new Gilded Age. It is an indispensable resource for readers interested in Wharton and 19th- and 20th-century literature and culture.

Usman Khan was convicted of terrorism-related offences at age 20, and sent to high-security prison. He was released eight years later, and allowed to travel to London for one day, to attend an event marking the fifth anniversary of a prison education programme he participated in. On 29 November, 2019, he sat with others at Fishmongers' Hall, some of whom he knew. Then he went to the bathroom to retrieve the things he had hidden there: a fake bomb vest and two knives, which he taped to his wrists. That day, he killed two people: Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt. Preti Taneja taught fiction writing in prison for three years. Merritt oversaw her program; Khan was one of her students. 'It is the immediate aftermath,' Taneja writes. '"I am living at the centre of a wound still fresh." The I is not only mine. It belongs to many.' In this searching lament by the award-winning author of We That Are Young, Taneja interrogates the language of terror, trauma and grief; the fictions we believe and the voices we exclude. Contending with the pain of unspeakable loss set against public tragedy, she draws on history, memory, and powerful poetic predecessors to reckon with the systemic nature of atrocity. Blurring genre and form, Aftermath is a profound attempt to regain trust after violence and to recapture a politics of hope through a determined dream of abolition.

What distinguishes modern tragedy from other forms of drama? How does it relate to contemporary political and social conditions? To what ends have artists employed the tragic form in different locations during the 20th century? Partly motivated by the urgency of our current situation in an age of ecocidal crisis, Modern Tragedy encompasses a variety of drama from throughout the 20th century. James Moran begins this book with John Millington Synge's Riders to the Sea (1904), which shows how environmental awareness might be expressed through tragic drama. Moran also looks at Brecht's reworking of Synge's drama in the 1937 play Senora Carrar's Rifles, and situates Brecht's script in the light of the theatre practitioner's broader ideas about tragedy. Brecht's tragic thinking - informed by Hegel and Marx - is contrasted with the Schopenhauerian approach of Samuel Beckett. The volume goes on to examine theatre makers whose ideas were partly motivated by applying an understanding of the tragic narrative of Synge's Riders to the Sea to postcolonial contexts. Looking at Derek Walcott's The Sea at Dauphin (1954), and J.P. Clark's The Goat (1961), Modern Tragedy explores how tragedy, a form that is often associated with regressive assumptions about hegemony, might be rethought, and how aspects of the tragic may coincide with the experiences and concerns of authors and audiences of colour.

York Notes for GCSE offer an exciting approach to English Literature and will help you to achieve a better grade. This market-leading series has been completely updated to reflect the needs of today's students. The new editions are packed with detailed summaries, commentaries on key themes, characters, language and style, illustrations, exam advice and much more. Written by GCSE examiners and teachers, York Notes are the authoritative guides to exam success.

This co-edited volume offers new insights into the complex relations between Brussels and Vienna in the turn-of-the-century period (1880-1930). Through archival research and critical methods of cultural transfer as a network, it contributes to the study of Modernism in all its complexity. Seventeen chapters analyse the interconnections between new developments in literature (Verhaeren, Musil, Zweig), drama (Maeterlinck, Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal), visual arts (Minne, Khnopff, Masereel, Child Art), architecture (Hoffmann, Van de Velde), music (Schoenberg, Ysaye, Kreisler, Kolisch), as well as psychoanalysis (Varendonck, Anna Freud) and cafe culture. Austrian and Belgian artists played a crucial role within the complex, rich, and conflictual international networks of people, practices, institutions, and metropoles in an era of political, social and technological change and intense internationalization. Contributors: Sylvie Arlaud, Norbert Bachleitner, Anke Bosse, Megan Brandow-Faller, Alexander Carpenter, Piet Defraeye, Clement Dessy, Aniel Guxholli, Birgit Lang, Helga Mitterbauer, Chris Reyns-Chikuma, Silvia Ritz, Hubert Roland, Inga Rossi-Schrimpf, Sigurd Paul Scheichl, Guillaume Tardif, Hans Vandevoorde.