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Seductions of Fate: Tragic Subjectivity, Ethics, Politics
by G. BasterraIf the tragic interpretation of experience is still so current, despite its disastrous ethical consequences, it is because it shapes our subjectivity. Instead of contradicting the ideals of autonomy and freedom, a modern subjectivity based on self-victimization in effect enables them. By embracing subjection to an alienating other (the Law, Power) the autonomous subject protects its sameness from the disruption of real people. Seductions of Fate stages a dialogue between this tragic agent of political emancipation and the unconditional ethical demands it seeks to evade.
Dress, Distress and Desire: Clothing and the Female Body in Eighteenth-Century Literature
by J. BatchelorDress, Distress and Desire explores representations of sartorial experience in eighteenth-century literature. Batchelor's study brings together for the first time canonical and non-canonical texts including novels, conduct books and women's magazines to investigate the pressures that the growth of the fashion market placed on conceptions of female virtue and propriety. It shows how dress dispelled the sentimental myth that the body acted as a moral index and enabled the women reader to resist some of sentimental literature's more prescriptive advice.
Questioning Scotland: Literature, Nationalism, Postmodernism
by E. BellQuestioning Scotland considers the ways in which Scottish Literature has often been discussed in parochial, essentialist terms. It suggests that Scottish literary studies must now expand its conceptual boundaries in order to account for changes taking place at wider European and global levels. It is literary-based but also scrutinizes the methodological construction process of national traditions. Drawing on wider theories of postmodernism, (post)nationalism and globalism, it will help map the changing nature of national studies and Scottish studies in particular.
The Writing of Rural England, 1500-1800
by S. Bending A. McRaeThe Writing of Rural England 1500-1800 documents and contextualizes the conflicting representations of rural life during a crucial period of social, economic and cultural change. It highlights the dialogues and tensions between agriculture and aesthetics, economics and morality, men and women, leisure and labour. By drawing on both canonical and marginal texts, it argues that early-modern writing not only reflected but played a part in constructing the cultural meanings of the English countryside with which we continue to live.
Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods
by M. Berg E. Eger'Luxury in the 18th Century' explores the political, economic, moral and intellectual effects of the production and consumption of luxury goods, and provides a broadly-based account from a variety of perspectives, addressing key themes of economic debate, material culture, the principles of art and taste, luxury as 'female vice' and the exotic.
Contemporary American Crime Fiction (Crime Files)
by Hans Bertens T. D'haenThis highly accessible, lively and informative study gives a clear and comprehensive overview of recent trends in American crime fiction. Building on a discussion of the immediate predecessors, Bertens and D'haen focus on the work of popular and award-winning authors of the last fifteen years. Particular attention is given to writers who have reworked established conventions and explored new directions, especially women and those from ethnic minorities.
Literature, Politics and Intellectual Crisis in Britain Today
by C. BloomIn 1997, thirty years after the demise of 'Swinging London', Britain again seemed to be the centre of the cultural universe, with a thriving arts scene, a new Labour government and a young and enterprising prime minister. 'Cool Britannia' seemed to sum up the new spirit of the 1990s in the hip language of the 1960s. In this book, Bloom offers a radical and controversial guide to the possibilities for intellectual life, popular culture, literary production and political authority in multi-cultural Britain in 2000 and beyond.
Dante and the Romantics
by A. BraidaThe British Romantic poets were among the first to realise the centrality of the Divine Comedy for the evolution of the European epic. This study explores the significance of Dante for Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats and William Blake. What was their idea of Dante? Why did they feel the need to approach his Christian epic on the afterlife? This study aims to answer these questions by focusing on the three poets' preoccupation with form and language.
Romanticism, Publishing and Dissent: Joseph Johnson and the Cause of Liberty
by H. BraithwaiteJoseph Johnson (1738-1809) was arguably the foremost bookseller of the late eighteenth century in England, publishing Joseph Priestley, William Cowper, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Mary Wollstonecroft, Wordsworth and Coleridge, among others, and his output closely linked to the turbulent events of his age. This book seeks to reassess the reputation of a man unfairly condemned in his own time as a dangerously 'radical' publisher and how far the works he published tended to promote the case for religious and political reform.
Michael Young: Social Entrepreneur
by A. BriggsMichael Young is one of the key figures in British twentieth century history. Focusing on family, community and social change, he has cascaded ideas, in the process coining new words, like 'meritocracy'. He has also initiated or played a major role in creating new and well-known organisations. These include the Consumers' Association, the Open University, and the National and International Extension Colleges. In 1945 he drafted the Labour Party's successful election manifesto Let Us Face the Future : in 1965 he was the first Chairman of the new Social Science Research Council.
The Feminization Debate in Eighteenth-Century England: Literature, Commerce and Luxury (Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print)
by E. CleryIn the Eighteenth-century, critics of capitalism denounced the growth of luxury and effeminacy; supporters applauded the increase of refinement and the improved status of women. This pioneering study explores the way the association of commerce and femininity permeated cultural production. It looks at the first use of a female author as an icon of modernity in the Athenian Mercury , and reappraises works by Elizabeth Singer Rowe, Mandeville, Defoe, Pope and Elizabeth Carter. Samuel Richardson's novels represent the culmination of the English debate, while contemporary essays by David Hume move towards a fully-fledged enlightenment theory of feminization.
Tennyson's Scepticism
by Aidan DayTennyson is not known for his scepticism. This book argues that he should be. It proposes a revaluation of the way in which his work is read. Tennyson has always been understood as a poet who is committed primarily to endorsing spiritual values. But this study argues that much of his poetry is driven by a metaphysical scepticism that is associated, in part, with rational perspectives deriving from Enlightenment thought. The scepticism in Tennyson's poetry partakes in the complex generation of the modern that was taking place in his era. One of the purposes of the study is to demonstrate that a cultural studies approach to Tennyson trivialises his intellectual subtlety and complexity. Making extensive critical use of Tennyson's manuscript drafts, this study provides close readings of Tennyson's earlier, shorter poems, together with the principal works of his maturity including In Memoriam , Maud and The Lover's Tale , and will be a valuable resource for Tennyson students and scholars worldwide.
Fisher of Men: A Life Of John Fisher, 1469-1535 - A Critical Biography
by M. DowlingJohn Fisher, 1469-1535 was a figure of European stature during the Tudor age. His many roles included those of bishop, humanist, theologian, cardinal, and ultimately martyr. This study places him in the context of sixteenth-century Christendom, focusing not just on his resistance to Henry VIII, but also on his active engagement with the renaissance and reformation.
Satyajit Ray's The Chess Players and Postcolonial Film Theory: Postcolonialism and Film Theory (Language, Discourse, Society)
by Reena DubeIndispensable for students of film studies, in this book Reena Dube explores Satyajit Ray's films, and The Chess Players in particular, in the context of discourses of labour in colonial and postcolonial conditions. Starting from Daniel Defoe and moving through history, short story and film to the present, Dube widens her analysis with comparisons in which Indian films are situated alongside Hollywood and other films, and interweaves historical and cultural debates within film theory. Her book treats film as part of the larger cultural production of India and provides a historical sense of the cross genre borrowings, traditions and debates that have deeply influenced Indian cinema and its viewers.
Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontës
by T. EagletonMyths of Power - Anniversary Edition sets out to interpret the fiction of the Brontë sisters in light of a Marxist analysis of the historical conditions in which it was produced. Its aim is not merely to relate literary facts, but by a close critical examination of the novels, to find in them a significant structure of ideas and values which related to the Brontës' ambiguous situation within the class-system of their society. Its intention is to forge close relations between the novels, nineteenth-century ideology, and historical forces, in order to illuminate the novels themselves in a radically new perspective. When originally published in 1975 (second edition in 1988), it was the first full-length Marxist study of the Brontës and is now reissued to celebrate 30 years since its first publication. It includes a new Introduction by Terry Eagleton which reflects on the changes which have happened in Marxist literary criticism since 1988, and situates this reissue of the second edition in current debates.
Chastity and Transgression in Women's Writing, 1792-1897: Interrupting the Harlot's Progress
by R. EberleWorking at the intersections of feminist literary criticism, new historicism, and narratology, Chastity and Transgression in Women's Writing revises current understandings of nineteenth-century representations of prostitution, female sexuality and the 'rights of woman' debate. Eberle's project explores the connections and disjunctures between women writing during the Romantic period and those working throughout the Victorian era. She considers a wide range of authors including Mary Wollstonecraft, Amelia Opie, Mary Hays, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Sarah Grand.
Transformations of Domesticity in Modern Women's Writing: Homelessness at Home
by T. FosterTransformations of Domesticity in Modern Women's Writing makes new connections between feminist criticism of domestic ideology in the nineteenth century, modernist women's experiments with literary form, contemporary feminist debates about the politics of location, and postmodern theories of social space. The book identifies a coherent transition of women's writing that transforms domestic ideologies of 'woman's place' by redefining the ideas about space that underlie that ideology. The result is to open the space of gender identity to new relations of class and race.
Victorian Travel Writing and Imperial Violence: British Writing on Africa, 1855-1902 (Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture)
by Laura E. FraneyThis study explores the cultural and political impact of Victorian travelers' descriptions of physical and verbal violence in Africa. Travel narratives provide a rich entry into the shifting meanings of colonialism, as formal imperialism replaced informal control in the Nineteenth century. Offering a wide-ranging approach to travel literature's significance in Victorian life, this book features analysis of physical and verbal violence in major exploration narratives as well as lesser-known volumes and newspaper accounts of expeditions. It also presents new perspectives on Olive Schreiner and Joseph Conrad by linking violence in their fictional travelogues with the rhetoric of humanitarian trusteeship.
A.S.Byatt: Art, Authorship and Creativity
by C. FrankenThis book considers the work of the novelist and critic A.S. Byatt in the context of contemporary debates about art, authorship, creativity and gender. A.S. Byatt emerges as an author who presents us with fascinating and ambivalent portraits of writers and who uses metaphors of creativity in original ways.
Mary Wollstonecraft: A Literary Life (Literary Lives)
by C. FranklinThis study argues that protestant society had traditionally sanctioned women's role in spreading literacy, but this became politicized in the 1790s. Wollstonecraft's literary vocation was shaped by the expectations of the power of print to educate and reform individuals and society, in the radical circles of the Unitarian publisher Joseph Johnson.
Before Modernism Was: Modern History and the Constituency of Writing (Language, Discourse, Society)
by G. GilbertBefore Modernism Was places modernist writing within the texture of modern history. Texts by Woolf, James, Freud, Wyndham Lewis, Stein, Malinowski, and others are read through a range of figures that construct and disrupt modern meaning: the ghost that affects the value of your property; the sulky, graceless adolescent; the Pole who may not be Polish; the nervous owner of the dog; the addict and her smoke. Eccentric to its institutions, these figures are central to the constituency of modernism.
Early Modern Hermaphrodites: Sex and Other Stories
by R. GilbertFrom the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century, hermaphrodites were discussed and depicted in a range of artistic, mythological, scientific and erotic contexts. Early Modern Hermaphrodites looks at some of those representations to explore the stories they tell about ambiguous sex and gender in early modern England. Gilbert examines the often contradictory ways in which hermaphrodites were represented as both spiritual ideals and sexual grotesques; as freaks, erotic objects and medical curiosities' and as literary metaphors and signs of social decay.
Wordsworth’s Bardic Vocation, 1787–1842
by R. GravilFrom 1787 to 1842, Wordsworth was preoccupied with the themes of loss and death, and with 'natural piety' in the lives of people and nations. Beginning with his consciousness of the Bards and Druids of Cumbria, this book treats Wordsworth's oeuvre , including the 'Gothic' juvenilia, The Ruined Cottage , Lyrical Ballads , Poems in Two Volumes , The Excursion , and the Poems of 1842, as unified by a Bardic vocation, to bind 'the living and the dead' and to nurture 'the kind'.
Robert Louis Stevenson: A Literary Life (Literary Lives)
by William GrayMore than most writers, Robert Louis Stevenson requires a Literary Life. Fascination with Stevenson's life (the 'Stevenson biography' is almost a minor genre) has tended to eclipse his literary achievement. This study focuses on Stevenson's writing practice within the different geographical, cultural and political contexts that shaped it, from Scotland to the South Seas. Following Stevenson's own views on biography, the book is not structured primarily in terms of chronology, but is more a kind of literary geography than traditional literary history.
Transition, Reception and Modernism
by R. GreavesIn this study of Yeats' poetry between 1902 and 1916, Greaves strongly reacts to the tendency in literary criticism to categorize Yeats' work as 'modernist', Instead, Greaves offer a different way of looking at the transition in Yeats' work in this period, by examining the poems in the context of Yeats' life. As a result, the figure of Yeats the poet is resurrected from the exhaustive category of 'modernism' and the complex connections between the figure of Yeats within the poems and its relationship with the Yeats who exists outside them is revealed.