Reading and studying great works of literature can help us expand our vision, worldview, and frame of reference and can make us feel more vital, exuberant, and alive. These activities can provide an intellectual experience to make life more comprehensible and meaningful. Furthermore, reading and studying literature can do an extraordinary job of telling us more about who we are and who we can become. Finally, reading and studying great literature provide us with a lens to help us see far beyond what we can see ourselves, as well as a lens to help us see far beyond what we can see about ourselves. Twenty Literary Essays provides students with a curated selection of literary works to build their appreciation of renowned creatives and thought leaders, expand their consciousness, and help them better understand the complexity of the human experience. Covering a wide range of literature, students read critical essays on Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Carl Sandburg, Robert Lowell, William Carlos Williams, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walter Pater, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Anne Bradstreet, Alice Walker, Elie Wiesel, William Shakespeare, Anne Bronte, George Eliot, Maxim Gorky, Leo Tolstoy, Robert Louis Adams, and many others. A dedicated section on rhetoric provides readers with a historical introduction to the topic, as well as an essay to help them understand the tension, influence, and cross-pollination within philosophy, poetry, and rhetoric in ancient Greece. Designed to provide students with an enlightening and intellectual experience, Twenty Literary Essays is ideal for courses and programs in literature.

Jack Kerouac: Tracing the Theme of Epiphany invites readers to survey and analyse Jack Kerouac's works with particular focus on his constant exploration to discover what it means to live a meaningful life. The text helps readers understand how Kerouac contributed to and influenced American literature, becoming one of the most famous writers of the 20th century. Divided into eight chapters, the book begins with a chapter that examines the historical, cultural, and literary context that gave rise to the Beat Generation, then progresses chronologically through Jack Kerouac's life from his birth in 1922 to his death in 1969. Dedicated chapters demonstrate how major life events and social and cultural influences-including the deaths of his brother and his father, the Great Depression, World War II, jazz music, his time at Columbia University, the rise of the Beat Generation, and more-significantly shaped his worldview and subsequently, his unique writing style. Throughout, the text demonstrates how Jack Kerouac always sought moments of clarity and epiphany, trying to make sense of the world around him. Jack Kerouac: Tracing the Theme of Epiphany is an ideal supplementary text for both undergraduate and graduate courses in literature and creative writing.