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.
Echoes of the Epic
This volume is a collection of fourteen original essays and one poem in honor of the prominent medievalist Gerard J. Brault, upon the occasion of his retirement from teaching at the Pennsylvania State University. World-renowned for his contributions to the French medieval epic (in particular "La Chanson de Roland") and French-Canadian cultural studies, Professor Brault is affectionately remembered as "Mr. Song of Roland" by his colleagues for his unique interpretation of Roland as a triumphant christian hero, rather than a tragic feudal warrior. Among the friend, former students, colleagues, and admirers who contributed to this festschrift are; William Calin (preface), Jeanette Beer, Keight Busby, Kimberlee Campbell, Robert Francis Cook, Bernard Guidot, Edward Heinemann, Catherine Jones, Hans-Erich Keller, Donald Maddox, Andre de Mandach, Emanuel Mickel, Rupert Pickens, Jean Subrenat, Joan Williamson, Jacques Ribard, and the editors, David and Mary Jane Schenck. All essays center on aspects of "La Chanson de Roland" and the French medieval epic in general.
The Fabliaux
This is an interesting book that provides a sane analysis of the relation between form and meaning in the fabliaux. It will henceforth be standard reading for those dealing with what nevertheless remains one of the most problematic genres of Old French Literature for the modern scholar.Keith Busby, "Speculum A Journal of Medieval Studies," Jan. 1990
Remaking the Middle Ages
Proposing a fresh theoretical approach to the study of cinematic portrayals of the Middle Ages, this book uses both semiotics and historiography to demonstrate how contemporary filmmakers have attempted to recreate the past in a way that, while largely imagined, is also logical, meaningful, and as truthful as possible. Carrying out this critical approach, the author analyzes a wide range of films depicting the Middle Ages, arguing that most of these films either reflect the past through a series of visual signs (a concept he has called "iconic recreation") or by comparing the past to a modern equivalent (called "paradigmatic representation").
Reading La Regenta
Criticism of La Regenta has until recently focused on the text's plot as an extraordinarily coherent and convincing fictional world. Stephanie A. Sieburth demonstrates that the devices which produce order in the text are counterbalanced by an equally strong tendency toward entropy of meaning. The narrator is shown to be duplicitous and unreliable in his judgments on characters and events. Without an omniscient narrator, readers must interpret for themselves the complex intertextual structure of the novel. Saints' lives, honor plays, and serial novels each provide partial reflections of Ana Ozores' story. The text becomes a collage of mutually reflecting segments which, like Ana in her moments of self-doubt and madness, ultimately question the function of language and of any overriding interpretation or meaning.
Gender and Representation
Applying recent European and Anglo-American feminist scholarship to the problems of gender representation, Charnon-Deutsch challenges the prevailing idea that the 19th-century Spanish novel is woman centered. The author's examination of novels by Valera, Pereda, Alas, and Galdos demonstrates that these works are instead a complex exploration of male identity. Decoding the gender ideology of women's roles, discourse, and representations, Charnon-Deutsch uncovers in the novels multiple configurations of androcentricity as well as voyeuristic tendencies, which she interprets as a means of mastering what is threatening to the male psyche.
Mendacity and the Figure of the Liar in Seventeenth-Century French Comedy
The first book-length study devoted to this topic, Mendacity and the Figure of the Liar in Seventeenth-Century French Comedy offers an important contribution to scholarship on the theatre as well as on early modern attitudes in France, specifically on the subject of lying and deception. Unusually for a scholarly work on seventeenth-century theatre, it is particularly alert to plays as performed pieces and not simply printed texts. The study also distinguishes itself by offering original readings of Molière alongside innovative analyses of other playwrights. The chapters offer fresh insights on well-known plays by Molière and Pierre Corneille but also invite readers to discover lesser-known...
Michel Tournier's Metaphysical Fictions
This study of the fictional themes and techniques of Michel Tournier reveals his profound radicalism as a social critic and novelist despite the seeming conventionality of his works. Guided by Tournier's essays and interviews, Petit examines his fiction in light of plot sources, philosophical and anthropological training, and his belief that fiction should change the world. Close study of Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique, Le Roi des aulnes, Les Meteores, Gaspard, Melchior et Balthazar, and La Goutte d'or, as well as the short fiction in Le Coq de bruyere and Le Medianoche amoureux, shows Tournier's revolutionary conception of plot structuring as he develops key themes, whether religion, sensuality, or prejudice, in more than twenty years spent reconceiving the nature of fiction.
Identity and Ideology
In a study drawing on contemporary and 18th-century literary theory and philosophy, social history and history of the theatre, Hayes presents a reading of the dramas of Diderot and Sade and argues for a new understanding of the genre as a whole.
Ambivalent Conventions
Much work has already been done on the conventions and formulae of Old French literature, particularly epic literature, and on parody in the French Middle Ages. This book links these approaches, widens the concept of 'formula', and aims to show that certain authors, far from being enslaved by the conventions within which they worked, were conscious of them and could master them with sufficient independence to exploit them for calculated literary effect, and in particular for parody. It studies the fabliaux, Aucassin et Nicolette and Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne, texts in which formulae play a varied and subtle part. In the fabliaux we find that formulae borrowed from serious literature add parodic depth to the often simple humour of these tales, but that the genre as a whole is not essentially parodic. Aucassin et Nicolette uses conventions to arouse expectations which may or may not be satisfied; parody proves to be fundamental to this work. The approach shows its full potential when applied to Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne; study of this text's use of formulae of the epic and romance traditions reveals a high degree of complexity and a finely nuanced parody.
Flaubert's Straight and Suspect Saints
Israel Pelletier argues that "Trois contes" demands a different kind of reading which distinguishes it from "Madame Bovary" and other Flaubert texts. By the time he wrote this late work, Flaubert's attitude toward his characters and the role of fiction had changed to accommodate different social, political, and literary pressures. He constructed two opposing levels of meaning for each of the stories, straight and ironic, which produced a more fruitful way of addressing some of his concerns and assumptions about langauge and illusion. Included in this study are a provocative feminist reading of "Un Coeur," an assessment of "Saint Julien" as Flaubert's attempt to come to terms with his originality as a writer, and an interpretation of "Herodias" as an autobiography of the writing process.
