Reading the Boss: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Works of Bruce Springsteen, edited by Roxanne Harde and Irwin Streight, draws together close readings of Bruce Springsteen's lyrics by scholars across a range of academic disciplines. The editors first make a compelling comparison between Bruce Springsteen and William Shakespeare, carefully building the argument that both men offer profound insight into the hungry human heart. Springsteen, they argue, uses many Shakespearean themes such as the ties of blood and friendship, commitment to country and community, the monsters of lust and jealousy, vanity and power, and the hopeful pursuit of real love. These themes lift his music beyond stories of characters casing the Promised Land of America to universal matters of the heart's truth wherever it is found. Then, the twelve chapters of Reading the Boss, written by established and emerging scholars, engage readers both critically and enthusiastically with central issues in Bruce Springsteen's writing, as they read his explorations of gender, place, religion, philosophy, and other literary texts, notably the works of Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor. Driven by arguments grounded in a wide variety of theoretical and critical positions, these essays offer a comprehensive and accessible discussion of Springsteen's oeuvre, from Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. to Working on a Dream that will appeal to both specialist readers and Springsteen fans alike.

Reading the Boss: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Works of Bruce Springsteen, edited by Roxanne Harde and Irwin Streight, draws together close readings of Bruce Springsteen's lyrics by scholars across a range of academic disciplines. The editors first make a compelling comparison between Bruce Springsteen and William Shakespeare, carefully building the argument that both men offer profound insight into the hungry human heart. Springsteen, they argue, uses many Shakespearean themes such as the ties of blood and friendship, commitment to country and community, the monsters of lust and jealousy, vanity and power, and the hopeful pursuit of real love. These themes lift his music beyond stories of characters casing the Promised Land of America to universal matters of the heart's truth wherever it is found. Then, the twelve chapters of Reading the Boss, written by established and emerging scholars, engage readers both critically and enthusiastically with central issues in Bruce Springsteen's writing, as they read his explorations of gender, place, religion, philosophy, and other literary texts, notably the works of Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor. Driven by arguments grounded in a wide variety of theoretical and critical positions, these essays offer a comprehensive and accessible discussion of Springsteen's oeuvre, from Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. to Working on a Dream that will appeal to both specialist readers and Springsteen fans alike.

Walker Percy's novels are fraught with characters struggling toward a destiny and purpose in life who must sort through conflicting inner voices and the voices of family, friends, therapists, and mentors until they finally find their own paths. Through trial, error, and retrial, Percy's characters continuously reinvent themselves, struggling until they reach solutions, satisfaction, and maturity.

In this multifaceted work, Michael Kobre analyzes Walker Percy's major fiction works--"The Moviegoer," "The Last Gentleman," "Love in the Ruins," "Lancelot," "The Second Coming," and "The Thanatos Syndrome"--in terms of the Russian philosopher and literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin's critical theory. Kobre begins with an introduction to Percy's view of language and consciousness and a clear, accessible explanation of Bakhtin's ideas. His subsequent discussion of the novels connects each work in turn with Percy's advancing career and explores the deepening conflict in Percy's fiction between his desire to express his own religious and moral beliefs and his commitment to the essential freedom of his art--the play of many voices in his narratives.