Eastern Europe is disappearing. Not off the map of course, but as an idea. Today it calls to mind a jumble of post-Soviet states paved over with C&A and McDonald's. We could describe Eastern Europe as a group of twenty nations - but why? For most of their history, they weren't nations at all. The region is more than the sum total of its annexations, invasions and independence declarations. Eastern Europe abounds with peoples tied together by tragicomic twists of fate. Lives could be turned upside down by distant decrees from Vienna or Istanbul, or just as easily by a stubborn bureaucrat in your village. In twentieth-century Khust, you could live in six different countries without ever leaving your house. You could get married any day, but buying a teakettle was a singular event. Goodbye Eastern Europe is a eulogy for a world we are losing, a vanishing culture of polytheism, vampires, sacred groves, and movable borders.

Based on extensive research, this authoritative study places Bukowski's poetry in its American cultural context, and explores the key poems and collections in his development. It traces magazines, literary contacts and influences from the mid-1940s to The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992). and Walt Whitman? About how and why Bukowski formed his unique reading style and public image? And about where he fits into West Coast and post war American verse? Although the book takes into account the best of the American and European commentary that currently exists, it also offers an original and intriguingly British point of view, giving special attention to Bukowski's readings during the 1970s and his influence upon the current generation of West Coast Poets.

They say you can't judge a book by its cover--but its title can tell you more than you ever needed to know!

Amazing, illuminating, and gut-bustingly funny, Bizarre Books is the wonderfully twisted product of more than two decades of determined searching in forgotten corners of out-of-the-way libraries and through the literary detritus of eclectic private collections. It is certain to delight every true fan of trivia and the patently absurd.

Benjamin Zephaniah, who has travelled the world for his art and his humanitarianism, now tells the one story that encompasses it all: the story of his life. In the early 1980s when punks and Rastas were on the streets protesting about unemployment, homelessness and the National Front, Benjamin's poetry could be heard at demonstrations, outside police stations and on the dance floor. His mission was to take poetry everywhere, and to popularise it by reaching people who didn't read books. His poetry was political, musical, radical and relevant. By the early 1990s, Benjamin had performed on every continent in the world (a feat which he achieved in only one year) and he hasn't stopped performing and touring since. Nelson Mandela, after hearing Benjamin's tribute to him while he was in prison, requested an introduction to the poet that grew into a lifelong relationship, inspiring Benjamin's work with children in South Africa. Benjamin would also go on to be the first artist to record with The Wailers after the death of Bob Marley in a musical tribute to Nelson Mandela. The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah is a truly extraordinary life story which celebrates the power of poetry and the importance of pushing boundaries with the arts.

This thoroughly updated fourth edition of Critical Theory Today offers an accessible introduction to contemporary critical theory, providing in-depth coverage of the most common approaches to literary analysis today, including: feminism; psychoanalysis; Marxism; reader-response theory; New Criticism; structuralism and semiotics; deconstruction; new historicism and cultural criticism; lesbian, gay, and queer theory; African American criticism; postcolonial criticism, and ecocriticism. This new edition features: * A brand new chapter on ecocriticism, including sections on deep ecology, eco-Marxism, ecofeminism (including radical, Marxist, and vegetarian ecofeminisms), and postcolonial ecocriticism and environmental justice * Considerable updates to the chapters on feminist theory, African American theory, postcolonial theory, and LGBTQ theories, including the terminology and theoretical concepts * An extended explanation of each theory, using examples from everyday life, popular culture, and a variety of literary texts * A list of specific questions critics ask about literary texts * An interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby through the lens of each theory * A list of questions for further practice to guide readers in applying each theory to different literary works * Updated and expanded bibliographies Both engaging and rigorous, this is a "how-to" book for undergraduate and graduate students new to critical theory and for college professors who want to broaden their repertoire of critical approaches to literature.

Alice Pleasance Liddell inspired what is considered today to be the greatest children's story of all time - Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland brought Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll together forever. The story behind this story is a dramatic saga of a very creative, curious, and magnetic young girl who grew up to become a cultural icon and one of the most celebrated women of the last 100 years. It is a story of love, tragedy, duty, courage and loyalty to family and country - that will surprise and deeply move you.
In 2006, award-winning author C.M. Rubin and her daughter, Gabriella Rubin (who are related to the Liddell family), began an incredible journey to create the ultimate book about the original Alice in Wonderland's life. Their grand pictorial, biographic vision for the book involved collecting photographs spanning two centuries, reaching out to many celebrated Alice in Wonderland artists (including Vik Muniz, Annie Liebovitz, Mark Steele, Lizzy Rockwell, Helen Oxenbury, Frances Broomfield, Jeanne Argent, David Cooper, Bruce Fuller, Tatiana Ianovskaia, Jewel, and Tom Otterness), and connecting with museums, libraries and schools around the world. The Real Alice in Wonderland book is told using never before seen pictures along with prominent voices from Alice's lifetime and from the present day. C.M. Rubin and her daughter Gabriella explore the theme of inspiration. Behind every great person there is the person who inspires and believes in him or her. The person who motivates them to realize their dreams. This magnificent cross-atlantic epic will fascinate you -- it will make you think again: what does it mean to inspire?
The Real Alice In Wonderland book is dedicated to all those who inspire the minds and souls of human beings.

Is a book the same book--or a reader the same reader--the second time around? The seventeen authors in this witty and poignant collection of essays all agree on the answer: Never.
The editor of "Rereadings "is Anne Fadiman, and readers of her bestselling book "Ex Libris "will find this volume especially satisfying. Her chosen authors include Sven Birkerts, Allegra Goodman, Vivian Gornick, Patricia Hampl, Phillip Lopate, and Luc Sante; the objects of their literary affections range from "Pride and Prejudice "to "Sue Barton, Student Nurse."
These essays are not conventional literary criticism; they are about relationships. "Rereadings "reveals at least as much about the reader as about the book: each is a miniature memoir that focuses on that most interesting of topics, the protean nature of love. And as every bibliophile knows, no love is more life-changing than the love of a book.

In a speech delivered in 1794, roughly one year after the execution of Louis XVI, Robespierre boldly declared Terror to be an 'emanation of virtue'. In adapting the concept of virtue to Republican ends, Robespierre was drawing on traditions associated with ancient Greece and Rome. But Republican tradition formed only one of many strands in debates concerning virtue in France and elsewhere in Europe, from 1680 to the Revolution. This collection focuses on moral-philosophical and classical-republican uses of 'virtue' in this period - one that is often associated with a 'crisis of the European mind'. It also considers in what ways debates concerning virtue involved gendered perspectives. The texts discussed are drawn from a range of genres, from plays and novels to treatises, memoirs, and libertine literature. They include texts by authors such as Diderot, Laclos, and Madame de Stael, plus other, lesser-known texts that broaden the volume's perspective. Collectively, the contributors to the volume highlight the central importance of virtue for an understanding of an era in which, as Daniel Brewer argues in the closing chapter, 'the political could not be thought outside its moral dimension, and morality could not be separated from inevitable political consequences'.

This book is an edition of the Athenian Constitution, the only one to survive of 158 Constitutions written in the school of Aristotle in the fourth century B.C., of which a text on papyrus was found at the end of the nineteenth century. Based on an edition commissioned by the Fondazione Lorenzo Valla in Italy, it provides an introduction, a re-edited Greek text with a facing translation, and a commentary. The editor has been engaged with this text throughout his working life, and published a large commentary on it in 1981 and a Penguin Classics translation of it in 1984: since then scholarly advances have continued, and he has been able to take advantage of them to bring the material in this book up to date. The translation aims at an accurate rendering of the Greek text; the commentary is based on the translation, and should be accessible to readers with little or no knowledge of Greek.

Pacifist Invasions is about what happens to the francophone lyric in the translingual Franco-Arabic context. Drawing on lyric theory, comparative poetics, and linguistics, it demonstrates how Arabic literature and Islamic scripture pacifically invade French in the poetry of Habib Tengour (Algeria), Edmond Jabes (Egypt), Salah Stetie (Lebanon), Abdelwahab Meddeb (Tunisia), and Ryoko Sekiguchi (Japan). Pacifist Invasions deploys side-by-side comparisons of classical Arabic literature, Islamic scripture, and the Arabic commentary traditions in the original language against the landscapes of modern and contemporary French and francophone literature, poetry, and poetics. Detailed close readings reveal three generic modes of translating Arabic poetics into the French lyric, and the mechanisms by which poets foreignize French, as they engage in a translational and intertextual relationship with the history and world of Arabic literature. Through fine-grained analyses of poetry, translations, commentaries, chapbooks, art books, and essays, Pacifist Invasions proposes a cross-cultural history and rereading of French and francophone literatures in relation to the transversal translations and transmissions of classical Arabic poetics. It offers a translingual, comparative repositioning of the field of francophone postcolonial studies along a fluid, translational Franco-Arabic axis. The vision of the postfrancophone succeeds the point of exhaustion within the French poetic sociolect, with wide-ranging and surprising implications for the study of French and francophone poetry.

Watter idee sal blindes van 'n olifant he? Miskien dink hulle dis 'n muur, 'n pilaar of 'n slang. Dit is di? analogie wat uitgebuit word in hierdie eerste Afrikaanse inleidende handboek tot die literatuurwetenskap. Die letterkunde is immers ook 'n omvattende verskynsel en die algemene literatuurwetenskap 'n veelsydige dissipline. Die letterkunde word dus vanuit verskillende teoretiese hoeke beskou. Moderne teoretiese sienings (bv. New Criticism, Nuwe Historisme en Postkolonialisme) word verduidelik deur 'n klassieke teks, Jan Rabie se Droogte, deurlopend m.b.v. hierdie teoriee te belig. Gerigte vrae oor ander Suid-Afrikaanse kortverhale help verder om hierdie nuwer teoriee vir plaaslike lesers bruikbaar te maak. Daarna word basiese vrae oor die literatuurwetenskap behandel. Die boek is 'n onontbeerlike hulpmiddel vir elke ernstige letterkundestudent en 'n moet vir elke onderwyser en dosent wat op hoogte wil bly met ontwikkelinge in die literatuurstudie.

Why, in the minds of most Americans, are Latinas still thought of as maids, seductresses, and booty-shaking salsa divas?

Never has the concept of Latina identity been more relevant. Also, never has there been a new generation of Latinas so ready to say what they mean and even criticize the Latina generation that preceded them. Until now.

In "Border-Line Personalities," twenty writers share their poignant and wickedly funny stories about fighting with their mothers, struggling with speaking Spanish, and dealing with the men who've done them wrong, among a myriad of other topics. In the end, each essay encompasses a different point of view, lending credence to the theory that no one can label any one item, idea, or person more Latina than the other.

Questions posed to Latinas of all ages in "Border-Line Personalities": Why do many of us often feel more American than Latina? How important is Spanish, really? Do we all really fit under one cultural umbrella? When thinking about having children, do we really have to consider being stay-at-home moms as most of us were raised to believe was law, or can Latinas even consider the possibility of raising children while working? What do we do when we fall in love with someone (male or female) outside our culture?

What secrets lie at the heart of America?

Discover the hidden reality behind Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol . . . and America itself. Just as there is only one Dan Brown, there is also only one secrets team that has achieved worldwide bestselling success by exposing the truth beneath Brown's bestselling novels. Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer have gathered together world-class authorities--from scientist Richard Dawkins, noetics expert Lynne McTaggart, and religious scholar Karen Armstrong to journalist Jeff Sharlet (author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at theHeart of American Power), mathematician and science historian Amir Aczel, FBI consultant Michael Barkun, 33 Freemason Arturo de Hoyos, and a host of renowned philosophers, symbologists, code breakers, art historians, writers, thinkers, and experts on the occult--to give readers the essential tools to understand the conspiracies, codes, cutting-edge science, cultural controversies, and suppressed history at the center of The Lost Symbol . . . and the very founding of the United States of America.

Which Founding Fathers were members of secret societies?

What is the true background of the Ancient Mysteries?

Does The Lost Symbol have a hidden religious agenda?

What is the actual role of Freemasons in American history?

What do the hidden codes embedded in the novel tell us?

The police don't show up on Easy Rawlins's doorstep until the third girl dies. It's Los Angeles, 1956, and it takes more than one murdered black girl before the cops get interested. Now they need Easy. As he says: "I was worth a precinct full of detectives when the cops needed the word in the ghetto." But Easy turns them down. He's married now, a father -- and his detective days are over. Then a white college coed dies the same brutal death, and the cops put the heat on Easy: If he doesn't help, his best friend is headed for jail. So Easy's back, walking the midnight streets of Watts and the darker, twisted avenues of a cunning killer's mind....

Oscar Wilde had one of literary history's most explosive love affairs with Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas. In 1895, Bosie's father, the Marquess of Queensberry, delivered a note to the Albemarle Club addressed to "Oscar Wilde posing as sodomite." With Bosie's encouragement, Wilde sued the Marquess for libel. He not only lost but he was tried twice for "gross indecency" and sent to prison with two years' hard labor. With this publication of the uncensored trial transcripts, readers can for the first time in more than a century hear Wilde at his most articulate and brilliant. The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde documents an alarmingly swift fall from grace; it is also a supremely moving testament to the right to live, work, and love as one's heart dictates.

Robin Jenkins's greatest novel is a powerful examination of good and evil, set against the backdrop of a Scottish estate during World War II. With its themes of class-conflict, war, evil and envy, this is a towering work of fiction that remains as relevant today as when it was first published. Suspenseful, dark and unforgettable, it is one of the masterpieces of modern Scottish literature. Iain Crichton Smith's SCOTNOTE study guide is a skilful and intelligent guide to the themes and characters of the novel, and explores the religious, philosophical and moral questions that it poses. Suitable for senior school pupils and students of all ages.

From a Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer, the most revealing, fascinating, and important biography of one of our greatest literary figures.

Oh, how the French love love! For hundreds of years, they have championed themselves as guides to the art de l'amour through their literature, paintings, songs, and cinema. A French man or woman without amorous desire is considered defective, like someone missing the sense of smell or taste. Now revered scholar Marilyn Yalom intimately examines the tenets of this culture's enduring gospel of romance.

Basing her delightfully erudite findings on her extensive readings of French literature, as well as memories of her personal experiences in la belle France, Yalom explores the many nuances of love as it has evolved over the centuries, from the Middle Ages to the present. Following along, step-by-step, on her romance-tinged literary detective hunt, the reader discovers how the French invented love, how they have kept it vibrant for more than nine centuries, what is unique in the French love experience, and what is universal.

ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults * New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age A riveting, scorching--and hilarious--autobiography by the award-winning author of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes and Deadline. From trying to impress a member of the girls' softball team (with disastrous dental results) to enduring the humiliation of his high school athletic club initiation (olives and oysters play unforgettable roles), Chris Crutcher's memoir of the tricky road to adulthood is candid, disarming, laugh-out-loud funny, relevant, and never less than riveting. He vividly describes a temper that was always waiting to trip him up even as it sustained him through some of the most memorable mishaps any child has survived. And how did this guy (he lifted his brother's homework through the entire tenth grade) ever become a writer, not to mention the author of fourteen critically acclaimed books for young people? The frontier may be mild, but the book is not. Fans of Tara Westover's Educated, Jack Gantos's Hole in My Life, and Walter Dean Myers's Bad Boy will laugh, will cry, and will remember. "Funny, bittersweet and brutally honest. Readers will clasp this hard-to-put-down book to their hearts even as they laugh sympathetically."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

In their celebration of 'little matters' - the regular round of visiting, dining out, drinking tea, of reading and walking to the shops and sending to the post - Jane Austen's letters and novels have many similarities. The thirteen letters collected by Jane Austen's House Museum, in Chawton, Hampshire and reproduced in this book give us intimate glimpses into her life in Bath and Chawton and on visits to London, many of their details finding echoes in her fiction. 'Jane Austen: The Chawton Letters' traces a lively story beginning in 1801, when, aged twenty-five, Jane Austen left Steventon in Hampshire to move to Bath. Later letters relish the shops, theatres and sights of London, but are interspersed from 1809 with the quieter routines of village life in Chawton, Hampshire, which was to be her home for the remainder of her short life. We learn here of her anxieties for the reception of Pride and Prejudice, her care in planning Mansfield Park and the hilarious negotiations over the publication of Emma. These letters, each accompanied by reproductions from the original manuscripts in Jane Austen's hand, testify to Jane's deep emotional bond with her sister: the most moving letter of all is that written by Cassandra only days after Jane's death in Winchester in July 1817. Brought together in this little book, these artefacts make a delightful modern-day keepsake of correspondence from one of the world's best-loved writers.

An enhanced exam section: expert guidance on approaching exam questions, writing high-quality responses and using critical interpretations, plus practice tasks and annotated sample answer extracts. Key skills covered: focused tasks to develop your analysis and understanding, plus regular study tips, revision questions and progress checks to track your learning. The most in-depth analysis: detailed text summaries and extract analysis to in-depth discussion of characters, themes, language, contexts and criticism, all helping you to succeed.

This richly illustrated book explores the huge creative endeavour behind Tolkien's enduring popularity. Lavishly illustrated with over 300 images of his manuscripts, drawings, maps and letters, the book traces the creative process behind his most famous literary works - 'The Hobbit', 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Silmarillion' and reproduces personal photographs and private papers,some of which have never been seen before in print. Tolkien drew on his deep knowledge of medieval literature and language to inform his literary imagination. Six introductory essays cover some of the main themes in Tolkien's life and work including the influence of northern languages and legends on the creation of his own legendarium; his concept of 'Faerie' as a literary construct; the central importance of his invented languages in his fantasy writing; his visual imagination and its emergence in his artwork; and the encouragement he derived from the literary group known as the Inklings. This book brings together the largest collection of original Tolkien material ever assembled in a single volume. Drawing on the archives of the Tolkien collections at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, and Marquette University, Milwaukee, as well as private collections, this exquisitely produced catalogue draws together the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien - scholarly, literary, creative and domestic - offering a rich and detailed understanding and appreciation of this extraordinary author.

In the age of Enlightenment the concept of night evolved from being a time of dread to a time for pleasure. Between the start of the Regence (1715-1723) and the French Revolution the nocturnal and the erotic became intrinsically connected: shadows and darkness were reconfigured as the object of the philosophes' fascination, while night was increasingly experienced as the realm of the self. Nowhere is this paradigmatic shift better recorded than in French libertine literature of the long eighteenth century. Marine Ganofsky delves into the night scenes of libertine fiction to analyse how the idea of night was reimagined and represented by writers ranging from Crebillon to Sade. Her original analysis of erotic encounters in pornographic novels, gallant stories and sensual fairy tales reveals how they capture the period's emancipation from superstitions and traditions. The nocturnal settings of these libertine narratives were the primary means of staging men and women's hitherto hidden sexual encounters and innermost fantasies, and ultimately illustrate the conquest of night-time terrors in favour of social encounters and amorous intimacy. Libertine nocturnal scenes reflect above all the Enlightenment's re-invention of shadows less as an obstacle than an incentive to discover the mysteries they harbour. Through her innovative research Marine Ganofsky presents the erotic nights of libertine fiction as a sign that the siecle des Lumieres, free to enjoy the charms to be found in, or under, the cover of darkness, was also the siecle de la nuit.