Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Narcissistic Narrative
Linda Hutcheon, in this original study, examines the modes, forms and techniques of narcissistic fiction, that is, fiction which includes within itself some sort of commentary on its own narrative and/or linguistic nature. Her analysis is further extended to discuss the implications of such a development for both the theory of the novel and reading theory. Having placed this phenomenon in its historical context Linda Hutcheon uses the insights of various reader-response theories to explore the “paradox” created by metafiction: the reader is, at the same time, co-creator of the self-reflexive text and distanced from it because of its very self-reflexiveness. She illustrates her analysis through the works of novelists such as Fowles, Barth, Nabokov, Calvino, Borges, Carpentier, and Aquin. For the paperback edition of this important book a preface has been added which examines developments since first publication. Narcissistic Narrative was selected by Choice as one of the outstanding academic books for 1981–1982.
The Dialogue of Writing
To the extent that writing has long been considered a substitute for "living" conversation, dialogue has been a quintessential metaphor for language as communication. This volume closely analyzes dialogue, both as a literary genre and as a critical principle underlying the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Diderot. In her analysis, the author examines relationships between texts and writers, between texts and readers, and between texts and other texts (intertextuality). Drawing extensively upon deconstructionist critical sources, as well as upon sociological and anthropological explorations of reading and writing, this volume provides valuable insight into the wonderfully complex acts of writing and reading, the "dialogue of writing." Of interest to students of eighteenth-century French literature, this work is alsoimportant to those interested in contemporary literary criticisms, its theory and practice, as well as to students of Barthes, Derrida, and Beneviste. The volume also presents fascinating applications of the the though of Claude Lévi-Strauss.
The Surprising Effects of Sympathy
Through readings of works by Marivaux, Diderot, Rousseau, and Mary Shelley, David Marshall provides a new interpretation of the eighteenth-century preoccupation with theatricality and sympathy. Sympathy is seen not as an instance of sensibility or natural benevolence but rather as an aesthetic and epistemological problem that must be understood in relation to the problem of theatricality. Placing novels in the context of eighteenth-century writing about theater, fiction, and painting, Marshall argues that an unusual variety of authors and texts were concerned with the possibility of entering into someone else's thoughts and feelings. He shows how key eighteenth-century works reflect on the p...
Playboys and Killjoys
Harry Levin--one of America's major literary critics--offers a brilliant and original study of the whole world of comedy, concentrating on playwrights through the centuries, from Aristophanes and Plautus in classical times to Bernard Shaw and Bertolt Brecht and their recent successors. Viewing the comic repertory as a richly varied yet broadly unified whole, Levin provides a synthesis of theories and practice. Isolating two fundamental aspects of comedy--the ludicrous and irreverent "playboy," whom we laugh with, and the ridiculous and forbidding "killjoy," whom we laugh at--he traces the dialectical interplay of these components throughout history and across various cultures and media. While mainly focusing on the plays and the stage, with discussions of such major dramatists as Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Molière, and William Congreve, Levin also includes essays on such related topics as humor, satire, and games.
The Postwar Novel in Canada
As a comparative study which includes the analysis of both English-Canadian and Quebec novels, this book provides an overview of the novel as it has developed in this country since the Second World War. Focusing on narratological rather than thematic elements, the book represents a systematic application of the insights and analytical tools of reader-reception theory, in particular the models proposed by Wolfgang Iser and Hans Robert Jauss. Placing the emphasis on the text and its effects rather than on the historical or psycho-sociological genesis of the text, the author invokes the models and paradigms of other literatures to establish a broader cultural context permitting the significance of a literature to emerge as a carrier of meaning in and beyond the culture that produces it. Tracing a critical path from Hugh MacLennan's hierarchic romance structures and Gabrielle Roy's social realism to the metafictions of Hubert Aquin and Timothy Findley, the author reveals that the novel's narratological features themselves are often closely linked with ideological positions.
Dictionary of World Literary Terms
First published in 1970, Dictionary of World Literary Terms brings together in one volume authoritative definitions of literary terms, forms and techniques, figures of speech and detailed notes on the history and development of the literatures and literary movements of the world. Arranged in alphabetical order for easy use, the entries range from anti-hero to zeugma, from classicism to the New Criticism, and from esoteric or archaic terms to contemporary theatre and poetry. This book will be indispensable for writers, students, scholars, researchers, librarians and everyone who has a literary curiosity.
George Alexander and the Work of the Actor-Manager
In the first book-length study of the work and legacy of West End actor-manager George Alexander since the 1930s, George Alexander and the Work of the Actor Manager examines the key part this figure played in presenting new drama by authors including Oscar Wilde and Henry James. The book sheds new light on the figure of the actor-manager, assessing in detail the influence of Alexander within and beyond his time. At the St. James’s Theatre in London between 1891 and 1918, through a range of strategies including the support of new writers, and adaptation of fiction to the stage, Alexander sustained professional status through practices that continue to be reflected in the cultural industries today. A range of evidence is employed including production reviews, anecdotal accounts, financial records, and personal correspondence, to reveal how he operated as a business entrepreneur as well as an artistic innovator.
Baudelaire and the English Tradition
This study of Baudelaire and English modernism observes his protean influence on poets from Swinburne, who wrote the first English review of Les Fleurs du Mai, to T. S. Eliot. Documenting Baudelaire's impact on Swinburne, Pater, Wilde, Arthur Symons, Aldous Huxley, Edith and Osbert Sitwell, D. H. Lawrence, the Imagists, John Middleton Murry, Eliot, and others, Patricia Clements describes the Baudelaire who is the creation of the English poets and identifies some major lines in the development of modernism in English literature. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Marivaux and Moliere
Marivaux and Moliere are, respectively, the greatest comedy writers of the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries. Whereas a library of critical material exists on Moliere, Marivaux has benefited from less commentary, and many questions concerning this eighteenth-century playwright remain unanswered. Among these, of primary importance is his relationship with Moliere. The present study represents an illuminating discussion of this relationship. It devotes a chapter to each of Marivaux's plays that recalls any aspect of Moliere's comedies. Without detracting from Marivaux's basic originality, Dr. Cismaru shows that Marivaux's alleged scorn for his illustrious predecessor did not prevent him from using molieresque scenes, tone, and vocabulary.The first book-length study of the relationship between Moliere and Marivaux is lucidly written and free from technical jargon. It should benefit both the student of the two playwrights and the specialist.
Louis Sébastien Mercier
French playwright, novelist, activist, and journalist Louis Sébastien Mercier (1740–1814) passionately captured scenes of social injustice in pre-Revolutionary Paris in his prolific oeuvre but today remains an understudied writer. In this penetrating study—the first in English devoted to Mercier in decades—Michael Mulryan explores his unpublished writings and urban chronicles, Tableau de Paris (1781–88) and Le Nouveau Paris (1798), in which he identified the city as a microcosm of national societal problems, detailed the conditions of the laboring poor, encouraged educational reform, and confronted universal social ills. Mercier’s rich writings speak powerfully to the sociopolitical problems that continue to afflict us as political leaders manipulate public debate and encourage absolutist thinking, deepening social divides. An outcast for his polemical views during his lifetime, Mercier has been called the founder of modern urban discourse, and his work a precursor to investigative journalism. This sensitive study returns him to his rightful place among Enlightenment thinkers.
