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Wendy Motooka contends that 'the Age of Reason' was actually an Age of Reasons. Joining imaginative literature, moral philosophy, and the emerging discourse of the new science, she seeks to historicise the meaning of eighteenth-century 'reason' and its supposed opposites, quixotism and sentimentalism. Reading novels by the Fieldings, Lennox and Sterne alongside the works of Adam Smith, Motooka argues that the legacy of sentimentalism is the social sciences. This book raises our understanding of eighteenth-century British culture and its relation to the 'rational' culture of economics that is growing ever more prevasive today.
Did god exist a thousand years ago? Atheism in The Medieval Islamic and European World discusses and analyzes the origins of questioning God and Religion in Medieval Middle Eastern and Europe literature and thought.In the Middle East, two Medieval Texts: A Thousand and One Nights and Gurganis Vis and Ramin are analyzed in terms of questioning God and His actions. In Europe, Dante; Abelard; Chaucer; the author of Chanson de Roland; and the author of The Pearl Poem ask similar questions. Azinfar argues that the Europeans were influenced by the religious skepticism inherent in Medieval Middle eastern texts.Azinfar also traces the roots of the ideas of Rationalism, Existentialism, Surrealism, and Feminism from the medieval Islamic world and follows them to the Medieval West. She shows how the period which we believed was steeped in religious dogmatism is actually an analytical period, rooted in rationality, advancement of science and skepticism. Tales about knights on quests rescuing damselsactually unveil theories on questioning traditional views on the stance of religion, the possibility of the existence of a physical world, and nihilism.
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Traces the history of the golem legend and its appropriations in German texts and film as well as in post-Holocaust Jewish-American fiction, comics, graphic novels, and television. First mentioned in the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible, the golem is a character in an astonishing number of post-Holocaust Jewish-American novels and has served as inspiration for such varied figures as Mary Shelley’s monster in her novel Frankenstein, a frightening character in the television series The X-Files, and comic book figures such as Superman and the Hulk. In The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction, author Elizabeth R. Baer introduces readers to these varied representations of the go...
This collection is the first to focus on the transgressive and transformative power of American female humorists. It explores the work of authors and comediennes such as Carolyn Wells, Lucille Clifton, Mary McCarthy, Lynne Tillman, Constance Rourke, Roz Chast, Amy Schumer and Samantha Bee, and the ways in which their humor challenges gendered norms and assumptions through the use of irony, satire, parody, and wit. The chapters draw from the experiences of women from a variety of racial, class, and gender identities and encompass a variety of genres and comedic forms including poetry, fiction, prose, autobiography, graphic memoir, comedic performance, and new media. Transgressive Humor of American Women Writers will appeal to a general educated readership as well as to those interested in women’s and gender studies, humor studies, urban studies, American literature and cultural studies, and media studies.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937) has been described variously as the successor to Edgar Allan Poe, a master of the Gothic horror tale, and one of the father of modern supernatural fantasy fiction. Published originally in pulp magazines, his works have grown in popularity since his death, so that more than thirty editions are currently in print. Yet only recently has Lovecraft received serious attention from literary critics. And until now no one has examined his work from a post-structuralist perspective. Donald Burleson fills that void, for the first time in an extended study bringing the resources of deconstruction to bear on the works of this modern gothicist. In an introductory ov...
Describes the history of a tract of land in modern-day Rockingham County, N.C., that was purchased by William Byrd II and later owned by the Farley family.
Studies range over the whole field of Arthurian literature, in Europe and North America, with special focus on Malory and Morte Darthur.
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Participants in the current debate about the literary canon generally separate the established literary order—of which Shakespeare is the most visible icon—from the emergent minority literatures. In this challenging study, Peter Erickson insists on bringing the two realms together. He asks: what impact does a revision of the literary canon have on Shakespeare's status? Part One of his book is about Shakespeare on women. In analyses of several Shakespearean works, Erickson discusses Shakespeare's ambivalence about women as a reflection of male anxiety about the cultural authority of Queen Elizabeth. Part Two is about (contemporary) women on Shakespeare. Erickson discusses Adrienne Rich's ...