The modernist period witnessed attempts to explain religious experience in non-religious terms. Such novelists as Henry James, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Franz Kafka found methods to describe through fiction the sorts of experiences that had traditionally been the domain of religious mystics and believers. In Religious Experience and the Modernist Novel, Pericles Lewis considers the development of modernism in the novel in relation to changing attitudes to religion. Through comparisons of major novelists with sociologists and psychologists from the same period, Lewis identifies the unique ways that literature addressed the changing spiritual situation of the early twentieth century. He challenges accounts that assume secularisation as the main narrative for understanding twentieth-century literature. Lewis explores the experiments that modernists undertook in order to invoke the sacred without directly naming it, resulting in a compelling study for readers of twentieth-century modernist literature.

Joseph Goebbels was the most notorious demagogue of the twentieth century, and Hitler's closest confidant. This book uses his complete diary from 1923-1945, only recently released from the Soviet Union, to present a challenging new interpretation of his life. It charts Goebbels' rise from provincial obscurity in the Rhineland, through his emergence as the most dynamic speaker of the Nazi Party and the Gauleiter of Berlin in the 1920s, to his appointment as Hitler's Propaganda Minister in 1933. Combining analysis of Goebbels' relationships with women and of his political career, it argues that there were clear threads running through his life, from a turbulent adolescence through to his death. Goebbels' love of German culture, his obsession with 'sacrifice', his fascination for Hitler, and his hatred of the Jews led him into a fatal involvement with German politics which culminated in his suicide, together his wife and six children, in Hitler's bunker in 1945.

Taking up such issues as mainstreaming, the male gaze, and female masculinity, this book puts forward provocative readings of little explored texts and offers new insights into the contemporary representation of lesbians.

The complete guide to the world of poetry -- from sonnets to spoken word!

Poetry For Dummies will help you understand, appreciate, and write poetry. This book is filled with hands-on exercises to get your creative juices flowing and smart tips on getting your poems published.

Over the past two decades, theatre practitioners across the West have turned to documentary modes of performance-making to confront new socio-political realities. The essays in this book place this work in context, exploring historical and contemporary examples of documentary and 'verbatim' theatre, and applying a range of critical perspectives.

When Lord Byron identified the periodical industry as the "Literary Lower Empire," he registered the cultural clout that periodicals had accumulated by positioning themselves as both the predominant purveyors of scientific, economic, and social information and the arbiters of literary and artistic taste. British Periodicals and Romantic Identity explores how periodicals such as the Edinburgh, Blackwood s, and the Westminster became the repositories and creators of "public opinion." In addition, Schoenfield examines how particular figures, both inside and outside the editorial apparatus of the reviews and magazines, negotiated this public and rapidly professionalized space. Ranging from Lord Byron, whose self-identification as lord and poet anticipated his public image in the periodicals, to William Hazlitt, equally journalist and subject of the reviews, this engaging study explores both canonical figures and canon makers in the periodicals and positions them as a centralizing force in the consolidation of Romantic print culture.

Dutch Sailmaker and sailor Jan Struys' (c.1629-c.1694) account of his various overseas travels became a bestseller after its first publication in Amsterdam in 1676, and was later translated into English, French, German and Russian. This new book depicts the story of its author's life as well as the first singular analysis of the Struys text.

This book advances the argument that the arts, from film and literature to painting and comics, offer qualitatively different readings of terror and trauma that endeavor to resist the exploitation and perpetuation of violence.

This book offers the first sustained examination of fatness in the early modern period. Using readings of such major figures as Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Skelton, this book considers alternative ways that fat was constructed before the introduction of the modern pathologized category of 'obesity'.

This new edition offers an extensive editor's introduction, a fully annotated text of the first edition of Vindiciae Gallicae and an appendix which includes the significant substantive revisions that Mackintosh made to Vindiciae Gallicae in the late summer of 1791.

An introduction to the theatrical art of comic storytelling that originated in the Edo period, Rakugo sheds light on Japanese culture as a whole: its aesthetics, social relations, and learning styles. Enriched with personal anecdotes, Rakugo explicates the art's contemporary performance culture: the image, training and techniques of the storytellers, the venues where they perform, and the role of the audience in sustaining the art. Laurie Brau inquires into how this comic art form participates in the discourse of heritage, serving as a symbol of the Edo culture, while continuing to appeal to Japanese today. Written in an accessible manner, this book is appropriate for all levels of student or researcher.

This book explores the ways in which Blake reacted to the subcultures of his day, as well as how he has inspired popular, modernist and postmodernist figures until the present day. Blake's influence on later generations of writers and artists is more important than ever, extending into film, psychology, children's literature and graphic novels.

There was a time when good writing would be defined simply by adverting to a few literary classics. That kind of strategy is less helpful these days, when so many different styles and voices clamor for attention. What Is Good Writing? sets the terms for a contemporary debate on writing achievement by drawing on empirical research in linguistics and the other cognitive sciences that shed light on the development of fluency in language generally. The utility of defining good writing as fluent writing in this sense - on a par with the typical fluency in speech attained by normal adults - is demonstrated by the progress it permits in evaluating the success of current writing programs in school and university, which for the most part have proved unable to deliver writing assessments that are both valid and reliable. What Is Good Writing? indicates an alternative approach that rests on a more scientific footing and shows why reading is key and why standard composition programs are so often seen to fail.

Deleuze's writing is permeated with references to literature. Despite asserting that he was not a literary critic, Deleuze provides exhilarating and original interactions with texts. This study offers in-depth encounters between Deleuze's thought and the writers who fascinated him, demonstrating the productivity of a Deleuzian frame of reference.

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.

This Companion offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the environmental humanities, an interdisciplinary movement that responds to a world reconfigured by climate change and its effects, from environmental racism and global migration to resource impoverishment and the importance of the nonhuman world. It addresses the twenty-first century recognition of an environmental crisis - its antecedents, current forms, and future trajectories - as well as possible responses to it. This books foregrounds scholarship from different periods, fields, and global locations, but it is organized to give readers a working context for the foundational debates. Each chapter examines a key topic or theme in Environmental Humanities, shows why that topic emerged as a category of study, explores the different approaches to the topics, suggests future avenues of inquiry, and considers the topic's global implications, especially those that involve environmental justice issues.

The Pro Milone numbers among Cicero's most famous speeches. In it he defends his friend T. Annius Milo against the charge of murdering P. Clodius Pulcher, Cicero's own archenemy. Clodius' death, Milo's trial, and their aftermath consumed Roman public life in 52 BC, involving every major political figure of the day. Although Cicero's defense failed, the published speech remains one of his finest, a fascinating document from a turbulent time, full of interest both historical and rhetorical. This edition, aimed at students and scholars alike, provides readers with the help that they need to appreciate the speech as a literary masterpiece and a historical text. Including a comprehensive introduction and a newly constituted Latin text, it provides detailed treatment of Cicero's language, style, and rhetorical techniques, as well as full discussion of the historical background and the larger social and cultural issues relevant to the speech.

The Pro Milone numbers among Cicero's most famous speeches. In it he defends his friend T. Annius Milo against the charge of murdering P. Clodius Pulcher, Cicero's own archenemy. Clodius' death, Milo's trial, and their aftermath consumed Roman public life in 52 BC, involving every major political figure of the day. Although Cicero's defense failed, the published speech remains one of his finest, a fascinating document from a turbulent time, full of interest both historical and rhetorical. This edition, aimed at students and scholars alike, provides readers with the help that they need to appreciate the speech as a literary masterpiece and a historical text. Including a comprehensive introduction and a newly constituted Latin text, it provides detailed treatment of Cicero's language, style, and rhetorical techniques, as well as full discussion of the historical background and the larger social and cultural issues relevant to the speech.

A collection of radical political fairy tales-some in English for the first time-from one of the great female practitioners of the genre Hermynia Zur Muhlen (1883-1951), one of the twentieth century's great political writers, was not seemingly destined for a revolutionary, unconventional literary career. Born in Vienna to an aristocratic Catholic family, Zur Muhlen married an Estonian count. But she rebelled, leaving her upper-class life to be with the Hungarian writer and Communist Stefan Klein, and supporting herself through translations and publications. Altogether, Zur Muhlen wrote thirty novels, mysteries, and story collections, and translated around 150 works, including those of Upton Sinclair, John Galsworthy, and Edna Ferber. A wonderful new addition to the Oddly Modern Fairy Tales series, The Castle of Truth and Other Revolutionary Tales presents English readers with a selection of Zur Muhlen's best political fairy tales, some translated from German for the first time. In contrast to the classical tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, Zur Muhlen's candid, forthright stories focus on social justice and the plight of the working class, with innovative plots intended to raise the political consciousness of readers young and old. For example, in "The Glasses," readers are encouraged to rip off the glasses that deceive them, while in "The Carriage Horse," horses organize a union to resist their working and living conditions. In "The Broom," a young worker learns how to sweep away injustice. With an informative introduction by Jack Zipes and period illustrations by George Grosz, John Heartfield, Heinrich Vogeler, and Karl Holtz, The Castle of Truth and Other Revolutionary Tales revives the legacy of a notable female artist whose literary and political work remains relevant in our own time.

This book explores the reception history of the most important Jewish Bible commentary ever composed, the Commentary on the Torah of Rashi (Shlomo Yitzhaki; 1040-1105). Though the Commentary has benefited from enormous scholarly attention, analysis of diverse reactions to it has been surprisingly scant. Viewing its path to preeminence through a diverse array of religious, intellectual, literary, and sociocultural lenses, Eric Lawee focuses on processes of the Commentary's canonization and on a hitherto unexamined-and wholly unexpected-feature of its reception: critical, and at times astonishingly harsh, resistance to it. Lawee shows how and why, despite such resistance, Rashi's interpretation of the Torah became an exegetical classic, a staple in the curriculum, a source of shared religious vocabulary for Jews across time and place, and a foundational text that shaped the Jewish nation's collective identity. The book takes as its larger integrating perspective processes of canonicity as they shape how traditions flourish, disintegrate, or evolve. Rashi's scriptural magnum opus, the foremost work of Franco-German (Ashkenazic) biblical scholarship, faced stiff competition for canonical supremacy in the form of rationalist reconfigurations of Judaism as they developed in Mediterranean seats of learning. It nevertheless emerged triumphant in an intense battle for Judaism's future that unfolded in late medieval and early modern times. Investigation of the reception of the Commentary throws light on issues in Jewish scholarship and spirituality that continue to stir reflection, and even passionate debate, in the Jewish world today.

One of Ireland's greatest contemporary writers turns her attention to one of the country's greatest novelists: James Joyce - in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the iconic classic ULYSSES. 'As skilful, stylish and pacy as one would expect from so adept a novelist' Sunday Telegraph 'A delight from start to finish . . . achieves the near impossibility of giving a thoroughly fresh view of Joyce' Sunday Times 'Accessible and passionate, it is a book which should bring Joyce in all his glory and agony to a new and very wide audience' Irish Independent Edna O'Brien depicts James Joyce as a man hammered by Church, State and family, yet from such adversities he wrote works 'to bestir the hearts of men and angels'. The journey begins with Joyce the arrogant youth, his lofty courtship of Nora Barnacle, their hectic sexuality, children, wanderings, debt and profligacy, and Joyce's obsession with the city of Dublin, which he would re-render through his words. Nor does Edna O'Brien spare us the anger and isolation of Joyce's later years, when he felt that the world had turned its back on him, and she asks how could it be otherwise for a man who knew that conflict is the source of all creation.

The fragments and testimonia of the early Greek philosophers (often labeled the Presocratics) have always been not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and ancient philosophy but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This new systematic conception and presentation of the evidence differs in three ways from Hermann Diels's groundbreaking work, as well as from later editions: it renders explicit the material's thematic organization; it includes a selection from such related bodies of evidence as archaic poetry, classical drama, and the Hippocratic corpus; and it presents an overview of the reception of these thinkers until the end of antiquity. Volume I contains introductory and reference materials essential for using all other parts of the edition. Volumes II-III include chapters on ancient doxography, background, and the Ionians from Pherecydes to Heraclitus. Volumes IV-V present western Greek thinkers from the Pythagoreans to Hippo. Volumes VI-VII comprise later philosophical systems and their aftermath in the fifth and early fourth centuries. Volumes VIII-IX present fifth-century reflections on language, rhetoric, ethics, and politics (the so-called sophists and Socrates) and conclude with an appendix on philosophy and philosophers in Greek drama.

Examining a range of twentieth century writers, including Vera Brittain, Anne Frank and Eva Hoffman, this study focuses on how recent theories of trauma can elucidate the narrative strategies employed in their autobiographical writing. The historical circumstances of each author are also considered. The result is a book which provides a vivid sense of how women writers have attempted to encompass key events of the twentieth century, particularly the First World War and the Holocaust, within their life stories.

In this pioneering work about the precursor to the comic book, Kelly Boyd traces the evolution of the boys' story paper and its impact on the imaginative world of working-class readers. From the penny dreadful and the Boy's Own Paper to the tales of Billy Bunter and Sexton Blake, this cultural form shaped ideas about gender, race, class and empire in response to social change. This study is an important analysis of a neglected part of popular culture.