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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: texts > General
First published in 1899, this beautiful, brief novel so disturbed critics and the public that it was banished for decades afterward. Now widely read and admired, The Awakening has been hailed as an early vision of woman's emancipation. This sensuous book tells of a woman's abandonment of her family, her seduction, and her awakening to desires and passions that threated to consumer her. Originally entitled "A Solitary Soul," this portrait of twenty-eight-year-old Edna Pontellier is a landmark in American fiction, rooted firmly in the romantic tradition of Herman Melville and Emily Dickinson. Here, a woman in search of self-discovery turns away from convention and society, and toward the primal, from convention and society, and toward the primal, irresistibly attracted to nature and the sensesThe Awakening, Kate Chopin's last novel, has been praised by Edmund Wilson as "beautifully written." And Willa Cather described its style as "exquisite," "sensitive," and "iridescent." This edition of The Awakening also includes a selection of short stories by Kate Chopin.
"This seems to me a higher order of feminism than repeating the story of woman as victim... Kate Chopin gives her female protagonist the central role, normally reserved for Man, in a meditation on identity and culture, consciousness and art." -- From the introduction by Marilynne Robinson.
A bold new interpretation of Nat Turner and the slave rebellion
that stunned the American South In 1831 Virginia, Nat Turner led a
band of Southampton County slaves in a rebellion that killed
fifty-five whites, mostly women and children. After more than two
months in hiding, Turner was captured, and quickly convicted and
executed. In the Matter of Nat Turner penetrates the historical
caricature of Turner as befuddled mystic and self-styled Baptist
preacher to recover the haunting persona of this legendary American
slave rebel, telling of his self-discovery and the dawning of his
Christian faith, of an impossible task given to him by God, and of
redemptive violence and profane retribution. Much about Turner
remains unknown. His extraordinary account of his life and
rebellion, given in chains as he awaited trial in jail, was written
down by an opportunistic white attorney and sold as a pamphlet to
cash in on Turner's notoriety. But the enigmatic rebel leader had
an immediate and broad impact on the American South, and his
rebellion remains one of the most momentous episodes in American
history. Christopher Tomlins provides a luminous account of
Turner's intellectual development, religious cosmology, and
motivations, and offers an original and incisive analysis of the
Turner Rebellion itself and its impact on Virginia politics.
Tomlins also undertakes a deeply critical examination of William
Styron's 1967 novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner, which restored
Turner to the American consciousness in the era of civil rights,
black power, and urban riots. A speculative history that recovers
Turner from the few shards of evidence we have about his life, In
the Matter of Nat Turner is also a unique speculation about the
meaning and uses of history itself.
The Dedalus Press series of budget pamphlets presents works by
major voices in world poetry. Inger Christensen (1935 - 2009) was
one of Denmark's best-known poets and was widely celebrated
throughout Europe and the United States. She wrote several volumes
of poetry as well as novels, plays, children's books and essays,
winning many major European prizes and awards, including the
prestigious Nordic Prize in 1994. Butterfly Valley is a tour de
force, exploring the major themes of life, love, death and art. The
form is simple yet complex, a sequence of fifteen sonnets building
to a final sonnet of extraordinary power composed of lines taken
from the preceding fourteen sonnets in the sequence. Life, love,
art, all are transient - like the butterfly - yet beautiful, even
in their ephemerality. The translator Susanna Nied is a former
insructor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State
University in California. Her translation of Inger Christensen's
alphabet won the 1982 ASF/PEN Translation Prize.
This revised volume follows the complete unabridged text as corrected in 1961. Contains the original foreword by the author and the historic court ruling to remove the federal ban. It also contains page references to the first American edition of 1934.
"A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism." So
begins one of history's most important documents, a work of such
magnitude that it has forever changed not only the scope of world
politics, but indeed the course of human civilization. The
Communist Manifesto was written in Friedrich Engels's clear,
striking prose and declared the earth-shaking ideas of Karl Marx.
Upon publication in 1848, it quickly became the credo of the poor
and oppressed who longed for a society "in which the free
development of each is the condition for the free development of
all."
The Communist Manifesto contains the seeds of Marx's more
comprehensive philosophy, which continues to inspire influential
economic, political, social, and literary theories. But the
Manifesto is most valuable as an historical document, one that led
to the greatest political upheaveals of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries and to the establishment of the Communist
governments that until recently ruled half the globe.
This Bantam Classic edition of The Communist Manifesto includes
Marx and Engels's historic 1872 and 1882 prefaces, and Engels's
notes and prefaces to the 1883 and 1888 editions.
Fiction. African & African American Studies. Translated from
the Hausa by Aliyu Kamal. Beginning in the late 1980s, northern
Nigeria saw a boom in popular fiction written in the Hausa
language. Known as littattafan soyyaya ("love literature"), the
books are often inspired by Hindi films, which have been hugely
popular among Hausa speakers for decades and are primarily written
by women. They have sparked a craze among young adult readers as
well as a backlash from government censors and book-burning
conservatives. SIN IS A PUPPY THAT FOLLOWS YOU HOME is an Islamic
soap opera complete with polygamous households, virtuous women,
scheming harlots, and black magic.
Imitating the habits, chores, beliefs of the Indian culture, it is
the dominant form in texts like the Pancatantra, the Jatakas, and
the Hitopadesha. It is included at different places in the long
narratives of the Mahabharata and the Yogavasishtha, and is
disseminated in the form of the various folktales of India. This
volume explores the unique tradition of Indian fables to present a
theoretical understanding and critical analysis of the various
aspects of the Indian fable. The work studies the Indian fables
spread across various compositions in the context of the dominant
discourses of the narratives, their form and structure and their
continuing relevance. It develops an overall understanding of the
Indian fables, their philosophy, mutual relationships,
proliferation and textual scholarship. It also establishes the
chronological development of the fables, right from the earliest
utterances found in the Vedas to the epics, the PaA catantra and
Buddhist texts. It emphasises the significance of the Indian fable
as a discourse, often the narrative becoming subservient to the
fable's discursive function. This interesting study will prove
useful to scholars and students of Indology, particularly those
concerned with Indian culture and literary tradition, as well as
general readers interested in fables and stories of the Indian
tradition.
This is a dual-language book with the French text on the left side,
and the English text on the right side of each spread. The texts
are precisely synchronized. See more details about this and other
books on French Classics in French and English page on Facebook.
Somshuklla has a pure and undefeated poetic heart. Her poems
resonate with this quality. Her poems are not constrained due to
any so called perspective. As a river flows its own course.
Somshuklla's creativity, particularly her language, is spontaneous
and original. The most interesting thing about her which touches
the readers' mind is her poetic eye---how she observes and
interprets her world! What Somshuklla sees in the myriad moments of
daily existence, she literally transcreates those visuals. As a
reader when we read her poems, she coaxes us to share her journey
into her world. We identify ourselves with the contours she etches
through her deft interplay of words, and simultaneously we feel
that she has compelled
In Kristin Lavransdatter (1920-1922), Sigrid Undset interweaves political, social, and religious history with the daily aspects of family life to create a colorful, richly detailed tapestry of Norway during the fourteenth-century. The trilogy, however, is more than a journey into the past. Undset's own life—her familiarity with Norse sagas and folklore and with a wide range of medieval literature, her experiences as a daughter, wife, and mother, and her deep religious faith—profoundly influenced her writing. Her grasp of the connections between past and present and of human nature itself, combined with the extraordinary quality of her writing, sets her works far above the genre of "historical novels." This new translation by Tina Nunnally—the first English version since Charles Archer's translation in the 1920s—captures Undset's strengths as a stylist. Nunnally, an award-winning translator, retains the natural dialog and lyrical flow of the original Norwegian, with its echoes of Old Norse legends, while deftly avoiding the stilted language and false archaisms of Archer's translation. In addition, she restores key passages left out of that edition. Undset's ability to present a meticulously accurate historical portrait without sacrificing the poetry and narrative drive of masterful storytelling was particularly significant in her homeland. Granted independence in 1905 after five hundred years of foreign domination, Norway was eager to reclaim its national history and culture. Kristin Lavransdatter became a touchstone for Undset's contemporaries, and continues to be widely read by Norwegians today. In the more than 75 years since it was first published, it has also become a favorite throughout the world.
With wit and humor, this new work from acclaimed author and
playwright Meno ("Hairstyles of the Damned") presents a revealing
look at anxiety, ambiguity, and the need for complicated answers to
complex questions.
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