Literary Criticism

22623 books

Ming Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader - Hardcover

$171.00

by Victor H. Mair (Editor), Zhenjun Zhang (Editor)With commentary and annotations throughout, Ming Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader presents for the first time in English 10 key stories from China's Ming Dynasty era. Casting new light on this significant period in Chinese literary history, these tales bring Ming era China vividly to life, from its chaotic beginnings to its imperial heyday.As well as bearing witness to social change across the 100-year life of the Ming Dynasty from 1260 to 1368,...

$23.00

by Don Mee Choi (Author)WINNER OF THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY Don Mee Choi's urgent DMZ Colony captures the migratory latticework of those transformed by war and colonization. Homelands present and past share one sky where birds fly, but 'during the Korean War cranes had no place to land.' Devastating and vigilant, this bricolage of survivor accounts, drawings, photographs, and hand-written texts unearth the truth between fact and the critical imagination. We are all 'victims of H...

$24.99

by Walt Whitman (Author), Ken Mondschein (Introduction by)A timeless collection of hundreds of poems that resonate to the American spirit. Leaves of Grass is a timeless collection of poems and essays penned by influential nineteenth-century writer Walt Whitman. This profound compilation explores topics such as nature, mysticism, mortality, transcendentalism, and democracy. Inspired by personal experiences and observations, Whitman spent almost four decades piecing together the complete work,...

A Midsummer Night's Dream: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Editions - Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English - Paperback

$9.99

by William Shakespeare (Author), Sparknotes (Author)Shakespeare everyone can understand--now in this new EXPANDED edition of MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM! Why fear Shakespeare? By placing the words of the original play next to line-by-line translations in plain English, this popular guide makes Shakespeare accessible to everyone. And now it features expanded literature guide sections that help students study smarter. The expanded sections include: Five Key Questions: Five frequently asked quest...

$16.15

by Pliny the Younger (Author), P. G. Walsh (Translator)In these letters to his friends and relations, Pliny the Younger, lawyer, author, and natural philosopher, provides a fascinating insight into Roman life in the period 97 to 112 AD. Part autobiography, part social history, they document the career and interests of a senator and leading imperial official whose friends include the historians Tacitus and Suetonius. Pliny's letters cover a wide range of topics, from the contemporary political...

$17.23

by Patrick Olivelle (Translator)The Law Code of Manu is the most authoritative and the best-known legal text of ancient India. Famous for fifteen centuries it still generates controversy, with Manu's verses being cited in support of the oppression of women and members of the lower castes. A seminal Hindu text, the Law Code is important for its classic description of so many social institutions that have come to be identified with Indian society. It deals with the relationships between social ...

Key Concepts in Postcolonial Literature - Paperback

$77.31

by Gina Wisker (Author)Key Concepts in Postcolonial Literature provides an overview of the main themes, issues and critical perspectives that have had the greatest effect on postcolonial literatures. Discussing historical, cultural and contextual background, it contains selected work of some of the major writers from this period.Author BiographyGINA WISKER is Director of Learning and Teaching Development, and MA Women's Studies Co-ordinator at Anglia Polytechnic University, UK, where she also...

Hanoch Levin: Selected Plays Two: Suitcase Packers; The Lost Women of Troy; The Labour of Life; Walkers in the Dark; Requiem - Paperback

$30.98

by Hanoch Levin (Author), Jessica Cohen (Translator), Evan Fallenberg (Translator)'Hanoch Levin is the modern world on the stage... we badly need to hear what he has to say.' David Lan Hanoch Levin was one of Israel's leading dramatists. Born in Tel Aviv in 1943, his work includes comedies, tragedies, and satirical cabarets, most of which he directed himself. He received numerous theatre awards both in Israel and abroad and his plays have been staged around the world. Levin was awarded the Bi...

The Interpretation of Dreams - Paperback

$15.07

by Artemidorus (Author), Peter Thonemann (Editor), Martin Hammond (Author)'Dreams are products of the mind, and do not come from any external source' Artemidorus' The Interpretation of Dreams (Oneirocritica) is the richest and most vivid pre-Freudian account of dream interpretation, and the only dream-book to have survived complete from Greco-Roman times. Written in Greek around AD 200, when dreams were believed by many to offer insight into future events, the work is a compendium of interpre...

Notes from the Underground and the Gambler - Paperback

$12.95

by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Author), Jane Kentish (Translator), Malcolm Jones (Introduction by)One of the most profound and disturbing works of nineteenth-century literature, Notes from the Underground is a probing and speculative work, often regarded as a forerunner to the Existentialist movement. The Gambler explores the compulsive nature of gambling, one of Dostoevsky's own vices and a subject he describes with extraordinary acumen and drama. Both works are new translations, specially commission...

$13.99

by C. P. Cavafy (Author), Evangelos Sachperoglou (Translator), Anthony Hirst (Author)"A Greek gentleman in a straw hat, standing absolutely motionless at a slight angle to the universe." E. M. Forster's famous description of C. P. Cavafy--the most widely known and best loved modern Greek poet--perfectly captures the unique perspective Cavafy brought to bear on history and geography, sexuality and language. Cavafy wrote about people on the periphery, whose religious, ethnic and cultural identi...

Twelfth Night: A Critical Reader - Paperback

$62.91

by Alison Findlay (Editor), Liz Oakley-Brown (Editor)Twelfth Nightis the most mature and fully developed of Shakespeare's comedies and, as well as being one of his most popular plays, represents a crucial moment in the development of his art. Assembled by leading scholars, this guide provides a comprehensive survey of major issues in the contemporary study of the play.Throughout the book chapters explore such issues as the play's critical reception from John Manningham's account of one of its...

$135.00

by James Robson (Author), C. W. Marshall (Editor), Niall W. Slater (Editor)Lysistrata is the most notorious of Aristophanes' comedies. First staged in 411 BCE, its action famously revolves around a sex strike launched by the women of Greece in an attempt to force their husbands to end the war. With its risqué humour, vibrant battle of the sexes, and themes of war and peace, Lysistrata remains as daring and thought-provoking today as it would have been for its original audience in Classical At...

The Complete Tolkien Companion - Paperback

$30.00

by J. E. a. Tyler (Author), Kevin Reilly (Illustrator)For all those who journey to Middle Earth, here is the complete guide to its lands, legends, histories, languages, and people. The Complete Tolkien Companion explains, translates, and links every single reference--names, dates, places, facts, famous weapons, even food and drink--to be found in J. R. R. Tolkien's world, which includes not only The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings but also The Simarillion and many other posthumously publishe...

J.R.R. Tolkien's Utopianism and the Classics - Hardcover

$180.00

by Hamish Williams (Author)This book opens up new perspectives on the English fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien, arguing that he was an influential thinker of utopianism in 20th-century fiction and that his scrutiny of utopias can be assessed through his dialogue with antiquity. Tolkien's engagement with the ancient world often reflects an interest in retrotopianism: his fictional places - cities, forests, homes - draw on a rich (post-)classical narrative imagination of similar spaces. Important...

$16.00

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Author), David McDuff (Translator), David McDuff (Introduction by)With their penetrating psychological insight and their emphasis on human dignity, respect and forgiveness, Dostoyevsky's early short stories contain the seeds of the themes that came to his major novels. Poor Folk, the author's first great literary triumph, is the story of a tragic relationship between an impoverished copy clerk and a young seamstress, told through their passionate letters to each other. ...

$15.95

by Cola Franzen (Translator)These poems, from the astonishing 10th- through 13th-century civilization in Andalusia, are based on the codex of Ibn Sa'id, who wanted poems whose idea is more subtle than the West Wind, and whose language is more beautiful than a fair face. Spanish readers have long been enchanted by their enduring appeal through the versions by Emilio Garc a G mez. This poetry of Arab Andalusia made a profound impact on Spain's Generation of '27. Rafael Alberti says that it was ...

Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books - Hardcover

$44.95

by Mark Glickman (Author)Stolen Words is an epic story about the largest collection of Jewish books in the world--tens of millions of books that the Nazis looted from European Jewish families and institutions. Nazi soldiers and civilians emptied Jewish communal libraries, confiscated volumes from government collections, and stole from Jewish individuals, schools, and synagogues. Early in their regime the Nazis burned some books in spectacular bonfires, but most they saved, stashing the litera...

Heart-Pine Russia: Walking and Writing the Nineteenth-Century Forest - Hardcover

$89.91

by Jane T. Costlow (Author)Russia has more woodlands than any other country in the world, and its forests have loomed large in Russian culture and history. Historical site of protection from invaders but also from state authority, by the nineteenth century Russia's forests became the focus of both scientific scrutiny and poetic imaginations. The forest was imagined as alternately endless and eternal or alarmingly vulnerable in a rapidly modernizing Russia. For some the forest constituted an i...

You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages - Paperback

$18.99

by Carina Chocano (Author)WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR CRITICISM. In this smart, funny, impassioned call to arms, a pop culture critic merges memoir and commentary to explore how our culture shapes ideas about who women are, what they are meant to be, and where they belong.As a kid in the 1970s and '80s, Carina Chocano was confused by the mixed messages all around her: messages that told her who she could be--and who she couldn't. She grappled with sexed-up sidekicks, ...

$5.95

by William Shakespeare (Author), Wolfgang Clemen (Editor)Magic, love spells, and an enchanted wood provide the materials for one of Shakespeare's most delightful comedies. When four young lovers, fleeing the law and their own mismatched rivalries, take to the forest of Athens, their lives become entangled with a feud between the King and Queen of the Fairies, resulting in a marvelous mix-up of desire and enchantment, merriment and farce.... This title in the Signet Classics Shakespeare serie...

Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma - Paperback

$20.99

by Gurcharan Das (Author)Why should we be good? How should we be good? And how might we more deeply understand the moral and ethical failings--splashed across today's headlines--that have not only destroyed individual lives but caused widespread calamity as well, bringing communities, nations, and indeed the global economy to the brink of collapse? In The Difficulty of Being Good, Gurcharan Das seeks answers to these questions in an unlikely source: the 2,000 year-old Sanskrit epic, Mahabhara...

$13.99

by Thomas de Quincey (Author), Robert Morrison (Editor)The titular essay in this volume of work by Thomas De Quincey centers on the notorious career of the murderer John Williams, who in 1811 brutally killed seven people in London's East End. De Quincey's response to Williams's attacks turns morality on its head, celebrating and coolly dissecting the art of murder and its perfections. This volume also contains De Quincey's best-known piece of literary criticism, "On the Knocking at the Gate i...

The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction with a New Epilogue - Paperback

$44.98

by Frank Kermode (Author)Frank Kermode is one of our most distinguished critics of English literature. Here, he contributes a new epilogue to his collection of classic lectures on the relationship of fiction to age-old concepts of apocalyptic chaos and crisis. Prompted by the approach of the millennium, he revisitsthe book which brings his highly concentrated insights to bear on some of the most unyielding philosophical and aesthetic enigmas. Examining the works of writers from Plato to Willi...

Cervantes' Don Quixote: A Casebook - Paperback

$116.28

by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria (Editor)This casebook gathers a collection of ambitious essays about both parts of the novel (1605 and 1615) and also provides a general introduction and a bibliography. The essays range from Ramón Menéndez Pidal's seminal study of how Cervantes dealt with chivalric literature to Erich Auerbachs polemical study of Don Quixote as essentially a comic book by studying its mixture of styles, and include Leo Spitzer's masterful probe into the essential ambiguity of t...

$16.98

by Aeschylus (Author), Janet Lembke (Translator), C. J. Herington (Translator)The Persians, Aeschylus' earliest surviving tragedy, holds a fascination both for readers of Greek drama and Greek history. Not only is it the earliest existing play in the Western tradition, it is drawn directly from the playwright's own experiences at the battle of Salamis, making it theonly account of the Persian Wars composed by an eyewitness. And as pure tragedy, it is a masterpiece. Aeschylus tells the story o...

Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1944: Collaboration, Resistance, and Daily Life in Occupied Paris - Paperback

$25.90

by Jean Guéhenno (Author), David Ball (Editor), David Ball (Translator)Winner of the French-American Foundation Translation Prize for Nonfiction Jean Guéhenno's Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1945 is the most oft-quoted piece of testimony on life in occupied France. A sharply observed record of day-to-day life under Nazi rule in Paris and a bitter commentary on literary life in those years, it has also been called "a remarkable essay on courage and cowardice" (Caroline Moorehead, Wall Street ...

Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics - Paperback

$13.95

by Stephen Greenblatt (Author)Examining the psyche--and psychoses--of the likes of Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, and Coriolanus, Greenblatt illuminates the ways in which William Shakespeare delved into the lust for absolute power and the disasters visited upon the societies over which these characters rule. Tyrant shows that Shakespeare's work remains vitally relevant today, not least in its probing of the unquenchable, narcissistic appetites of demagogues and the self-destructive willingness o...

Complete Poems of C. P. Cavafy: Including the First English Translation of the Unfinished Poems - Paperback

$40.00

by C. P. Cavafy (Author), Daniel Mendelsohn (Translator)Author BiographyDaniel Mendelsohn was born on Long Island and studied classics at the University of Virginia and at Princeton. His reviews and essays on literary and cultural subjects appear frequently in The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. His books include a memoir, The Elusive Embrace, a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year; the international best seller The Lost: A Search for Six of S...

$35.98

Report copyright infringementby Amanda Nabors (Author)A 12-Month Daily Devotional In When Love Pours, Love Speaks!, readers are invited to embark on a yearlong journey of spiritual renewal, encouragement, and divine affirmation. Rooted in the unwavering truth of God's unconditional love, this 12-month daily devotional serves as a gentle reminder that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, cherished beyond measure, and worthy of love-not because of what we do, but simply because of who we are...

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made on: A Jungian Interpretation of Literature (Chiron Monograph Series: Volume 5)

$46.08

Report copyright infringementby Clifton Snider (Author)Jung believed that great literature compensates for collective psychic imbalance, either by offering alternatives or by reflecting the imbalance. In this study, Snider explores Jung's theories by focusing on a wide selection of Western literature. Included are chapters on Merlin as he was portrayed by Victorian authors, Swinburne's Tristram of Lyonesse, Virginia Woolfs Orlando and The Waves, The Member of the Wedding and Clock Without Han...

Open Secrets: The Popular Fiction of Britain's Occult Revival, 1842-1936

$169.29

Report copyright infringementby Christine Ferguson (Author)Open Secrets examines the popular genre fiction produced by leading figures within Britain's occult revival from the 1840s to the 1930s, including Edward Bulwer Lytton, Emma Hardinge Britten, Marie Corelli, Mabel Collins, Arthur Machen, Charles Fort, Aleister Crowley, and Dion Fortune. Ferguson demonstrates how the revival's popular fictional output was always more than just a reflection of, or mode of propaganda for, unorthodox autho...