books tagged “lit crit”

›
› Find signed collectible books by ''

English

via
Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
by Northrop Frye

ISBN 0691069999 (0-691-06999-9)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays'
Book summary:
Northrop Frye was one of the most influential 20th-century literary scholars, and Anatomy of Criticism is his most influential book. In this rigorous and readable work of scholarship, Frye feistily champions literary criticism's legitimacy and independence--both by differentiating criticism from other academic disciplines, and by banishing any conception of the critic as "parasite or jackal" (this latter view, Frye notes, is still quite popular, "especially among artists"). The book began as something quite different, and took nearly a decade to write. Frye published his first major work--Fearful Symmetry, on the Romantic poet William Blake--in 1947 and had set out to produce a second tome on Edmund Spencer. But the critical insights accumulating in his fertile mind were too insistent, so the book on Spencer became Anatomy of Criticism.
Anatomy of Criticism remains provocative and enlightening in no small part because of its ambitious breadth. Frye's comprehension of literary history is breathtaking, as is the complexity but also the clarity of his thought. Four chapters treat historical, ethical, archetypal, and rhetorical modes of criticism, bracketed by a "Polemical Introduction" and a "Tentative Conclusion." Frye's ultimate aim is to confirm for the reader that literary criticism is a science in its own right: "Criticism," he says, "is to art what history is to action and philosophy is to wisdom.... And just as there is nothing which the philosopher cannot consider philosophically, and nothing which the historian cannot consider historically, so the critic should be able to construct and dwell in a conceptual universe of his own." Rather than promote any particular critical approach over another, he tries to construct a theoretical structure sturdy and expansive enough to accommodate and inter-relate a broad range of critical approaches. --Russell Prather [via]
More editions of Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays:
- Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays: ISBN 0691012989 (0-691-01298-9)
  Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
- Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays: ISBN 0691069999 (0-691-06999-9)
  Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
via
Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
by William Calin

ISBN 0802092721 (0-8020-9272-1)
Hardcover, Univ of Toronto Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays'
Book summary:
Northrop Frye was one of the most influential 20th-century literary scholars, and Anatomy of Criticism is his most influential book. In this rigorous and readable work of scholarship, Frye feistily champions literary criticism's legitimacy and independence--both by differentiating criticism from other academic disciplines, and by banishing any conception of the critic as "parasite or jackal" (this latter view, Frye notes, is still quite popular, "especially among artists"). The book began as something quite different, and took nearly a decade to write. Frye published his first major work--Fearful Symmetry, on the Romantic poet William Blake--in 1947 and had set out to produce a second tome on Edmund Spencer. But the critical insights accumulating in his fertile mind were too insistent, so the book on Spencer became Anatomy of Criticism.
Anatomy of Criticism remains provocative and enlightening in no small part because of its ambitious breadth. Frye's comprehension of literary history is breathtaking, as is the complexity but also the clarity of his thought. Four chapters treat historical, ethical, archetypal, and rhetorical modes of criticism, bracketed by a "Polemical Introduction" and a "Tentative Conclusion." Frye's ultimate aim is to confirm for the reader that literary criticism is a science in its own right: "Criticism," he says, "is to art what history is to action and philosophy is to wisdom.... And just as there is nothing which the philosopher cannot consider philosophically, and nothing which the historian cannot consider historically, so the critic should be able to construct and dwell in a conceptual universe of his own." Rather than promote any particular critical approach over another, he tries to construct a theoretical structure sturdy and expansive enough to accommodate and inter-relate a broad range of critical approaches. --Russell Prather [via]
More editions of Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays:
- Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays: ISBN 0802092721 (0-8020-9272-1)
  Hardcover, Univ of Toronto Pr
Annotated Alice
by Lewis Carroll

ISBN 0452010411 (0-452-01041-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Annotated Alice'
More editions of Annotated Alice:
- Annotated Alice: ISBN 0452010411 (0-452-01041-1)
  Softcover, Penguin Group USA
via
Annotated Alice
by Martin Gardner, Lewis Carroll, John Tenniel

ISBN 0393048470 (0-393-04847-0)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Annotated Alice'
Book summary:
"What is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations!"
Readers who share Alice's taste in books will be more than satisfied with The Annotated Alice, a volume that includes not only pictures and conversations, but a thorough gloss on the text as well. There may be some, like G.K. Chesterton, who abhor the notion of putting Lewis Carroll's masterpiece under a microscope and analyzing it within an inch of its whimsical life. But as Martin Gardner points out in his introduction, so much of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass is composed of private jokes and details of Victorian manners and mores that modern audiences are not likely to catch. Yes, Alice can be enjoyed on its own merits, but The Annotated Alice appeals to the nosy parker in all of us. Thus we learn, for example, that the source of the mouse's tale may have been Alfred Lord Tennyson who "once told Carroll that he had dreamed a lengthy poem about fairies, which began with very long lines, then the lines got shorter and shorter until the poem ended with fifty or sixty lines of two syllables each." And that, contrary to popular belief, the Mad Hatter character was not a parody of then Prime Minister Gladstone, but rather was based on an Oxford furniture dealer named Theophilus Carter.
Gardner's annotations run the gamut from the factual and historical to the speculative and are, in their own way, quite as fascinating as the text they refer to. Occasionally, he even comments on himself, as when he quotes a fellow annotator of Alice, James Kincaid: "The historical context does not call for a gloss but the passage provides an opportunity to point out the ambivalence that may attend the central figure and her desire to grow up." And then follows with a charming riposte: "I thank Mr. Kincaid for supporting my own rambling." There's a lot of information in the margins (indeed, the page is pretty evenly divided between Carroll's text and Gardner's), but the ramblings turn out to be well worth the time. So hand over your old copy of Lewis Carroll's classic to the kids--this Alice in Wonderland is intended entirely for adults. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of Annotated Alice:
- Annotated Alice: ISBN 0393048470 (0-393-04847-0)
  Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
via
Annotated Alice : Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
by Lewis Carroll, John Tenniel, Martin Gardner

ISBN 0517029626 (0-517-02962-6)
Hardcover, Random House Value Publishing

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Annotated Alice : Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass'
Book summary:
A fully annotated and illustrated version of both ALICE IN WONDERLAND and THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS that contains all of the original John Tenniel illustrations. From "down the rabbit hole" to the Jabberwocky, from the Looking-Glass House to the Lion and the Unicorn, discover the secret meanings hidden in Lewis Carroll's classics. [via]
More editions of Annotated Alice : Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass:
- Annotated Alice : Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass: ISBN 0517189208 (0-517-18920-8)
  Hardcover, Random House Value Publishing
- The Annotated Alice : Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass: ISBN 0517029626 (0-517-02962-6)
  Hardcover, Random House Value Publishing
via
The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 0195112210 (0-19-511221-0)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry'
Book summary:
Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence, is a study of Romantic poets and the relation between tradition and the individual artist. For the second edition, Bloom offers an introduction which explains the genesis of his thinking and the subsequent influence of the book on literary criticism of the past twenty years. [via]
More editions of The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry:
via
Aspects of the Novel
by E. M. Forster

ISBN 0156091801 (0-15-609180-1)
Softcover, Harcourt

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Aspects of the Novel'
Book summary:
There are all kinds of books out there purporting to explain that odd phenomenon the novel. Sometimes it's hard to know whom they're are for, exactly. Enthusiastic readers? Fellow academics? Would-be writers? Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster's 1927 treatise on the "fictitious prose work over 50,000 words" is, it turns out, for anyone with the faintest interest in how fiction is made. Open at random, and find your attention utterly sandbagged.
Forster's book is not really a book at all; rather, it's a collection of lectures delivered at Cambridge University on subjects as parboiled as "People," "The Plot," and "The Story." It has an unpretentious verbal immediacy thanks to its spoken origin and is written in the key of Aplogetic Mumble: "Those who dislike Dickens have an excellent case. He ought to be bad." Such gentle provocations litter these pages. How can you not read on? Forster's critical writing is so ridiculously plainspoken, so happily commonsensical, that we often forget to be intimidated by the rhetorical landscapes he so ably leads us through. As he himself points out in the introductory note, "Since the novel is itself often colloquial it may possibly withhold some of its secrets from the graver and grander streams of criticism, and may reveal them to backwaters and shallows."
And Forster does paddle into some unlikely eddies here. For instance, he seems none too gung ho about love in the novel: "And lastly, love. I am using this celebrated word in its widest and dullest sense. Let me be very dry and brief about sex in the first place." He really means in the first place. Like the narrator of a '50s hygiene film, Forster continues, dry and brief as anything, "Some years after a human being is born, certain changes occur in it..." One feels here the same-sexer having the last laugh, heartily.
Forster's brand of humanism has fallen from fashion in literary studies, yet it endures in fiction itself. Readers still love this author, even if they come to him by way of the multiplex. The durability of his work is, of course, the greatest raison d'être this book could have. It should have been titled How to Write Novels People Will Still Read in a Hundred Years. --Claire Dederer [via]
More editions of Aspects of the Novel:
- Aspects of the Novel: ISBN 0156091801 (0-15-609180-1)
  Softcover, Harcourt
Aspects of the Novel, and Related Writings
by E. M. Forster

ISBN 0713157690 (0-7131-5769-0)
Hardcover, Edward Arnold

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Aspects of the Novel, and Related Writings'
More editions of Aspects of the Novel, and Related Writings:
- Aspects of the Novel, and Related Writings: ISBN 0713157690 (0-7131-5769-0)
  Hardcover, Edward Arnold
via
Axel's Castle : A Story of the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930
by Edmund Wilson

ISBN 067960233X (0-679-60233-X)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Axel's Castle : A Story of the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930'
Book summary:
If great writers are hard to find, then it's safe to say great literary critics are as rare as wild white tigers who can juggle plates. Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) was one of America's most important critics, and Axel's Castle was the book that put him on the map. Few people outside graduate school read serious literary criticism, but a look into Wilson's intense thought and clear prose makes you wonder why the genre has been neglected. If you're a lover of the Modernist writers--Wilson looks specifically at Joyce, Proust, Yeats, Valery, Eliot, Stein, and Rimbaud here--then you'll enjoy Axel's Castle. [via]
More editions of Axel's Castle : A Story of the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930:
- Axel's Castle : A Story of the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930: ISBN 067960233X (0-679-60233-X)
  Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
Axel's Castle: A Study in the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930
by Edmund Wilson

ISBN 039330194X (0-393-30194-X)
Softcover, Norton

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Axel's Castle: A Study in the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930'
More editions of Axel's Castle: A Study in the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930:
- Axel's Castle: A Study in the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930: ISBN 068471938X (0-684-71938-X)
  Hardcover, Scribner
- Axel's Castle: A Study in the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930: ISBN 039330194X (0-393-30194-X)
  Softcover, Norton
Critical Terms for Literary Study
by Frank Lentricchia, Thomas McLaughlin

ISBN 0226472027 (0-226-47202-7)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Critical Terms for Literary Study'
More editions of Critical Terms for Literary Study:
via
Critical Terms for Literary Study
by Thomas McLaughlin, Frank Lentricchia

ISBN 0226472035 (0-226-47203-5)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Critical Terms for Literary Study'
Book summary:
Since its publication in 1990, Critical Terms for Literary Study has become a landmark introduction to the work of literary theorygiving tens of thousands of students an unparalleled encounter with what it means to do theory and criticism. Significantly expanded, this new edition features six new chapters that confront, in different ways, the growing understanding of literary works as cultural practices.

These six new chapters are "Popular Culture," "Diversity," "Imperialism/Nationalism," "Desire," "Ethics," and "Class," by John Fiske, Louis Menand, Seamus Deane, Judith Butler, Geoffrey Galt Harpham, and Daniel T. O'Hara, respectively. Each new essay adopts the approach that has won this book such widespread acclaim: each provides a concise history of a literary term, critically explores the issues and questions the term raises, and then puts theory into practice by showing the reading strategies the term permits.

Exploring the concepts that shape the way we read, the essays combine to provide an extraordinary introduction to the work of literature and literary study, as the nation's most distinguished scholars put the tools of critical practice vividly to use.
[via]
More editions of Critical Terms for Literary Study:
- Critical Terms for Literary Study: ISBN 0226472035 (0-226-47203-5)
  Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature
by C. S. Lewis

ISBN 0521477352 (0-521-47735-2)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature'
Book summary:
C.S. Lewis' The Discarded Image paints a lucid picture of the medieval world view, as historical and cultural background to the literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It describes the "image" discarded by later ages as "the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organization of their theology, science and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental model of the universe." This, Lewis' last book, was hailed as "the final memorial to the work of a great scholar and teacher and a wise and noble mind." [via]
More editions of The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature:
The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature
by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, Helen Tiffin

ISBN 0415280192 (0-415-28019-2)
Hardcover, Taylor & Francis Group

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Empire Writes Back : Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures'
Book summary:
The experience of colonization and the challenges of the post-colonial world have produced an explosion of new writing in English. This diverse and powerful body of literature has established a specific practice of colonial writing in cultures as diverse as India, Australia, the West Indies, Africa and Canada. This comprehensive study opens debates about the interrelationships of these literatures, investigates the powerful forces acting on language in the post-colonial text and shows how these texts constitute a radical critique of the assumptions underlying Eurocentric notions of literature and language. [via]
More editions of The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature:
- The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature: ISBN 0415012090 (0-415-01209-0)
  Softcover, Routledge
- The Empire Writes Back : Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures: ISBN 0415280192 (0-415-28019-2)
  Hardcover, Taylor & Francis Group
via
The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures
by Gareth Griffiths, Bill Ashcroft, Helen Tiffin

ISBN 0415280206 (0-415-28020-6)
Softcover, Routledge

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures'
Book summary:
The experience of colonization and the challenges of a post-colonial world have produced an explosion of new writing in English. This diverse and powerful body of literature has established a specific practice of post-colonial writing in cultures as various as India, Australia, the West Indies and Canada, and has challenged both the traditional canon and dominant ideas of literature and culture.

The Empire Writes Back was the first major theoretical account of a wide range of post-colonial texts and their relation to the larger issues of post-colonial culture, and remains one of the most significant works published in this field. The authors, three leading figures in post-colonial studies, open up debates about the interrelationships of post-colonial literatures, investigate the powerful forces acting on language in the post-colonial text, and show how these texts constitute a radical critique of Eurocentric notions of literature and language.

This book is brilliant not only for its incisive analysis, but for its accessibility for readers new to the field. Now with an additional chapter and an updated bibliography, The Empire Writes Back is essential for contemporary post-colonial studies.
[via]
More editions of The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures:
- The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures: ISBN 0415012082 (0-415-01208-2)
  Hardcover, Routledge
- The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures: ISBN 0415280206 (0-415-28020-6)
  Softcover, Routledge
via
From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers
by Marina Warner

ISBN 0374524874 (0-374-52487-4)
Softcover, Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers'
Book summary:
One dare not even call it seminal, yet in this ground-breaking work, English novelist and historian Marina Warner casts herself as the female Joseph Campbell in a fascinating and lively book that opens with the observation that "storytelling makes women thrive -- and not exclusively women," and then lifts the veil on both tellers and tales ranging from Sibyl to the late, great Angela Carter, from Lot's daughters to Disney's "Little Mermaid." She finds a not-so-hidden history of women, sex, power, fear -- and even healing -- lurking therein. An eye-opening reworking of our common myth pool. [via]
More editions of From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers:
- From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers: ISBN 0374159017 (0-374-15901-7)
  Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
- From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers: ISBN 0374524874 (0-374-52487-4)
  Softcover, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
via
A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature
by John R. Willingham, Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne Campbell Reesman, Wilfred L. Guerin

ISBN 0195160177 (0-19-516017-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature'
Book summary:
Now in its fourth edition, A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature has become a standard introduction to the close reading of literature. It offers students and other readers a variety of ways to interpret a piece of literature, ranging from traditional approaches through the formalist, the psychological, the mythic and archetypal, and into such contemporary approaches as feminist criticism and cultural studies. Applying these diverse approaches to the same five works, the book shows students how various methods offer different insights, enriching their response to and understanding of the individual work. This fourth edition features a new chapter on cultural studies and the inclusion and interpretation of Alice Walker's singularly rich short story, "Everyday Use." [via]
More editions of A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature:
- A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature: ISBN 0195099559 (0-19-509955-9)
  Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
- A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature: ISBN 0195160177 (0-19-516017-7)
  Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature
by Wilfred L. Guerin, Earle Labor, Lee Morgan

ISBN 019506948X (0-19-506948-X)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature'
Book summary:
For over twenty-five years a favorite of instructors and students around the world, this comprehensive guide to the major critical approaches to literature has been thoroughly revised to reflect the explosion of critical theories and the radical expansion and revision of the literary canon that have taken place in recent decades. Two entirely new chapters cover feminist approaches and structuralism and poststructuralism, and there are substantial new sections on recent neo-Marxist theories, dialogics, hermeneutics, the new historicism, and reader-response criticism. In addition, bibliographic references have been updated and expanded throughout.

Combining the best features of competing texts, the Handbook not only defines and outlines the development of all the major critical-interpretive perspectives, with copious references to the most important and influential sources, but offers detailed practical applications of the various approaches to the same four literary works--a unique feature that gives students both a dramatic demonstration of the strengths of each approach and a memorable set of models for the interpretation of other literary works. Organized for flexibility, the Handbook can be taught as a continuous unit or adapted to fit courses organized by genre, and is equally successful as an introductory survey for beginning students and as a reference and bibliographic guide for graduates.

Offering a practical yet scholarly blend of applied criticism and pedagogy in an engaging style and an accessible format, this new edition of the Handbook is an invaluable companion for today's students of literature and literary criticism. [via]
More editions of A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature:
- A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature: ISBN 0060425547 (0-06-042554-7)
  Hardcover, Harper & Row
- A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature: ISBN 019506948X (0-19-506948-X)
  Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
via
How to Read and Why
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 0684859076 (0-684-85907-6)
Softcover, Scribner

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'How to Read and Why'
Book summary:
Harold Bloom's urgency in How to Read and Why may have much to do with his age. He brackets his combative, inspiring manual with the news that he is nearing 70 and hasn't time for the mediocre. (One doubts that he ever did.) Nor will he countenance such fashionable notions as the death of the author or abide "the vagaries of our current counter-Puritanism" let alone "ideological cheerleading." Successively exploring the short story, poetry, the novel, and drama, Bloom illuminates both the how and why of his title and points us in all the right directions: toward the Romantics because they "startle us out of our sleep-of-death into a more capacious sense of life"; toward Austen, James, Proust; toward Thomas Mann, Toni Morrison, and Cormac McCarthy; toward Cervantes and Shakespeare (but of course!), Ibsen and Oscar Wilde.
How should we read? Slowly, with love, openness, and with our inner ear cocked. Then we should reread, reread, reread, and do so aloud as often as possible. "As a boy of eight," he tells us, "I would walk about chanting Housman's and William Blake's lyrics to myself, and I still do, less frequently yet with undiminished fervor." And why should we engage in this apparently solitary activity? To increase our wit and imagination, our sense of intimacy--in short, our entire consciousness--and also to heal our pain. "Until you become yourself," Bloom avers, "what benefit can you be to others." So much for reading as an escape from the self!
Still, many of this volume's pleasures may indeed be selfish. The author is at his best when he is thinking aloud and anew, and his material offers him--and therefore us--endless opportunities for discovery. Bloom cherishes poetry because it is "a prophetic mode" and fiction for its wisdom. Intriguingly, he fears more for the fate of the latter: "Novels require more readers than poems do, a statement so odd that it puzzles me, even as I agree with it." We must, he adjures, crusade against its possible extinction and read novels "in the coming years of the third millennium, as they were read in the eighteenth and nineteenth century: for aesthetic pleasure and for spiritual insight."
Bloom is never heavy, since his vision quest contains a healthy love of irony--Jedediah Purdy, take note: "Strip irony away from reading, and it loses at once all discipline and all surprise." And this supreme critic makes us want to equal his reading prowess because he writes as well as he reads; his epigrams are equal to his opinions. He is also a master allusionist and quoter. His section on Hedda Gabler is preceded by three extraordinary statements, two from Ibsen, who insists, "There must be a troll in what I write." Who would not want to proceed? Of course, Bloom can also accomplish his goal by sheer obstinacy. As far as he is concerned, Don Quixote may have been the first novel but it remains to this day the best one. Is he perhaps tweaking us into reading this gigantic masterwork by such bald overstatement? Bloom knows full well that a prophet should stop at nothing to get his belief and love across, and throughout How to Read and Why he is as unstinting as the visionary company he adores. --Kerry Fried [via]
More editions of How to Read and Why:
via
Illuminations
by Walter Benjamin

ISBN 0805202412 (0-8052-0241-2)
Softcover, Schocken Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Illuminations'
Book summary:
Walter Benjamin was one of the most original cultural critics of the twentieth century. Illuminations includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and on Brecht's Epic Theater. Also included are his penetrating study "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and Benjamin's theses on the philosophy of history.

Hannah Arendt selected the essays for this volume and introduces them with a classic essay about Benjamin's life in dark times. Also included is a new preface by Leon Wieseltier that explores Benjamin's continued relevance for our times. [via]
More editions of Illuminations:
- Illuminations: ISBN 0805202412 (0-8052-0241-2)
  Softcover, Schocken Books
via
J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century
by T. A. Shippey

ISBN 0618257594 (0-618-25759-4)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century'
Book summary:
Recent polls have consistently declared that J.R.R. Tolkien is "the most influential author of the century," and The Lord of the Rings is "the book of the century." In support of these claims, the prominent medievalist and scholar of fantasy Professor Tom Shippey now presents us with a fascinating companion to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, focusing in particular on The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.
The core of the book examines The Lord of the Rings as a linguistic and cultural map and as a response to the meaning of myth. It presents a unique argument to explain the nature of evil and also gives the reader a compelling insight into the unparalleled level of skill necessary to construct such a rich and complex story. Shippey also examines The Hobbit, explaining the hobbits' anachronistic relationship to the heroic world of Middle-earth, and shows the fundamental importance of The Silmarillion to the canon of Tolkien's work. He offers as well an illuminating look at other, lesser-known works in their connection to Tolkien's life.
[via]
More editions of J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century:
- J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century: ISBN 061812764X (0-618-12764-X)
  Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin
- J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century: ISBN 0618257594 (0-618-25759-4)
  Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
via
Literary Language & Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages
by Erich Auerbach, Ralph Manheim

ISBN 0691024685 (0-691-02468-5)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Literary Language & Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages'
Book summary:
In this, his final book, Erich Auerbach writes, "My purpose is always to write history." Tracing the transformations of classical Latin rhetoric from late antiquity to the modern era, he explores major concerns raised in his Mimesis: the historical and social contexts in which writings were received, and issues of aesthetics, semantics, stylistics, and sociology that anticipate the concerns of the new historicism.
[via]
More editions of Literary Language & Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages:
- Literary Language & Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages: ISBN 0691024685 (0-691-02468-5)
  Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
via
Literary Theory: An Introduction
by Terry Eagleton

ISBN 081661251X (0-8166-1251-X)
Softcover, Univ of Minnesota Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Literary Theory: An Introduction'
Book summary:
A concise, witty, and entertaining introduction to the seemingly impenetrable world of modern literary [via]
More editions of Literary Theory: An Introduction:
via
A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing
by Elaine Showalter

ISBN 0691004765 (0-691-00476-5)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing'
Book summary:
Readers of this new, enlarged edition of the classic feminist study of British women novelists will find themselves delighted by Elaine Showalter's astute and acerbic critical intelligence. Showalter is one of the few scholars who can make her readers rush to their bookshelves to refute her point, or simply to experience again Jane Eyre, The Mill on the Floss, or the bitterly illuminating stories of Katherine Mansfield. Her chief innovation is to place the works of famous women writers beside those of the minor or forgotten, building a continuity of influence and inspiration as well as a more complete picture of the social conditions in which women's books have been produced. She has added a new introduction recounting, with justifiable pleasure, how daring and controversial her study seemed when it first appeared in 1977 (and how many enemies it made her). In an afterword, she touches on more recent developments in the women's novel in Britain, including the influence of the dazzling Angela Carter. --Regina Marler [via]
More editions of A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing:
via
The Madwoman in the Attic
by Sandra Gilbert

ISBN 0300025963 (0-300-02596-3)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Madwoman in the Attic'
Book summary:
This pathbreaking book of feminist criticism is now reissued with a substantial new introduction by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar that reveals the origins of their revolutionary realization in the 1970s that "the personal was the political, the sexual was the textual". [via]
More editions of The Madwoman in the Attic:
- The Madwoman in the Attic: ISBN 0300025963 (0-300-02596-3)
  Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
via
The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
by Sandra M. Gilbert, Susan Gubar

ISBN 0300084587 (0-300-08458-7)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination'
Book summary:
This pathbreaking book of feminist criticism is now reissued with a substantial new introduction by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar that reveals the origins of their revolutionary realization in the 1970s that "the personal was the political, the sexual was the textual". [via]
More editions of The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination:
- The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination: ISBN 0300022867 (0-300-02286-7)
  Hardcover, Yale University Press
- The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination: ISBN 0300084587 (0-300-08458-7)
  Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
via
Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
by Erich Auerbach

ISBN 069111336X (0-691-11336-X)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature'
Book summary:
A half-century after its translation into English, Erich Auerbach's Mimesis still stands as a monumental achievement in literary criticism. A brilliant display of erudition, wit, and wisdom, his exploration of how great European writers from Homer to Virginia Woolf depicted reality has taught generations how to read Western literature. This new expanded edition includes a substantial essay in introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay, never before translated into English, in which Auerbach responds to his critics. [via]
More editions of Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature:
- Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature: ISBN 0691012695 (0-691-01269-5)
  Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
- Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature: ISBN 069111336X (0-691-11336-X)
  Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
via
Mythologies
by R. Barthes

ISBN 0686539389 (0-686-53938-9)
Hardcover, French & European Pubns

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Mythologies'
Book summary:
"[Mythologies] illustrates the beautiful generosity of Barthes's progressive interest in the meaning (his word is signification) of practically everything around him, not only the books and paintings of high art, but also the slogans, trivia, toys, food, and popular rituals (cruises, striptease, eating, wrestling matches) of contemporary life . . . For Barthes, words and objects have in common the organized capacity to say something; at the same time, since they are signs, words and objects have the bad faith always to appear natural to their consumer, as if what they say is eternal, true, necessary, instead of arbitrary, made, contingent. Mythologies finds Barthes revealing the fashioned systems of ideas that make it possible, for example, for 'Einstein's brain' to stand for, be the myth of, 'a genius so lacking in magic that one speaks about his thought as a functional labor analogous to the mechanical making of sausages.' Each of the little essays in this book wrenches a definition out of a common but constructed object, making the object speak its hidden, but ever-so-present, reservoir of manufactured sense."--Edward W. Said
[via]
More editions of Mythologies:
via
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism
by Vincent B. Leitch

ISBN 0393974294 (0-393-97429-4)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism'
Book summary:
NA [via]
More editions of The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism:
- The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism: ISBN 0393974294 (0-393-97429-4)
  Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
On Histories and Stories: Selected Essays
by A. S. Byatt

ISBN 0674008332 (0-674-00833-2)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'On Histories and Stories: Selected Essays'
More editions of On Histories and Stories: Selected Essays:
- On Histories and Stories: Selected Essays: ISBN 0674004515 (0-674-00451-5)
  Hardcover, Harvard Univ Pr
- On Histories and Stories: Selected Essays: ISBN 0674008332 (0-674-00833-2)
  Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
via
On Literature
by Umberto Eco, Martin McLaughlin

ISBN 0156032392 (0-15-603239-2)
Softcover, Harcourt

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'On Literature'
Book summary:
In this collection of essays and addresses delivered over the course of his illustrious career, Umberto Eco seeks "to understand the chemistry of [his] passion" for the word. From musings on Ptolemy and "the force of the false" to reflections on the experimental writing of Borges and Joyce, Eco's luminous intelligence and encyclopedic knowledge are on dazzling display throughout. And when he reveals his own ambitions and superstitions, his authorial anxieties and fears, one feels like a secret sharer in the garden of literature to which he so often alludes.
Remarkably accessible and unfailingly stimulating, this collection exhibits the diversity of interests and the depth of knowledge that have made Eco one of the world's leading writers.
[via]
More editions of On Literature:
- On Literature: ISBN 0151008124 (0-15-100812-4)
  Hardcover, Harcourt
- On Literature: ISBN 0156032392 (0-15-603239-2)
  Softcover, Harcourt
via
Orientalism
by Edward W. Said

ISBN 039474067X (0-394-74067-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Orientalism'
Book summary:
For generations now, Edward W. Said's "Orientalism" has defined our understanding of colonialism and empire, and this "Penguin Modern Classics" edition contains a preface written by Said shortly before his death in 2003. In this highly-acclaimed work, Edward Said surveys the history and nature of Western attitudes towards the East, considering orientalism as a powerful European ideological creation - a way for writers, philosophers and colonial administrators to deal with the 'otherness' of eastern culture, customs and beliefs. He traces this view through the writings of Homer, Nerval and Flaubert, Disraeli and Kipling, whose imaginative depictions have greatly contributed to the West's romantic and exotic picture of the Orient. Drawing on his own experiences as an Arab Palestinian living in the West, Said examines how these ideas can be a reflection of European imperialism and racism. Edward W. Said (1935-2003) was a Palestinian-American cultural critic and author, born in Jerusalem and educated in Egypt and the United States. His other books include "The Question of Palestine", "Culture and Imperialism" and "Out of Place: A Memoir". If you enjoyed "Orientalism", you might like Frantz Fanon's "The Wretched of the Earth", also available in "Penguin Modern Classics". "Stimulating, elegant and pugnacious". ("Observer"). "Beautifully patterned and passionately argued". ("New Statesman"). "Very exciting ...his case is not merely persuasive, but conclusive". (John Leonard, "New York Times"). "Magisterial". (Terry Eagleton). [via]
More editions of Orientalism:
- Orientalism: ISBN 0394428145 (0-394-42814-5)
  Hardcover, Pantheon Books
- Orientalism: ISBN 039474067X (0-394-74067-X)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
via
The Oxford Companion to English Literature
by Margaret Drabble

ISBN 0198614535 (0-19-861453-5)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Oxford Companion to English Literature'
Book summary:
Sir Paul Harvey's original Oxford Companion to English Literaure, published in 1932, was the book that began Oxford's celebrated Companion series. In its various editions in the half-century since then, it has enjoyed an enormously faithful following and unflagging sales (over 400,000 to date). Now, for the Fifth Edition, the eminent novelist and biographer Margaret Drabble has put together the most substantial and significant revision in the book's distinguished history.

The Classic Guide to English Literary Culture
Here, thoroughly updated, is the standard reference work on English literature, both clasic and contemporary. The virtues established by Harvey are intact: the useful plot summaries, the separate entries on important fictional characters, the countless biographical articles on authors and other important figures in the world of letters, the lightness of touch that makes the book a pleasure to read. As ever, this is an essential book for libraries large and small, for students, for teachers, for everyone interested in English literature.

Revisions Deepen and Widen Book's Appeal
Drabble's revisions not only bring the volume up to date; they both deepen and widen its appeal. Topics once regarded as non-literary--detective stories, science fiction, children's literature, comic strips, for example--are now included, as are numerous foreign language authers who have become well-known in translation. There are also entries on composers who have adapted English texts to musical forms and articles on visual artists whose work has been touched by the English literary consciousness. The book covers all the important movements and critical theories (including the latest developments in Freudian and Marxist criticism and Saussurean linguistics and its successors). What is more, the entries on classic works--Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, The Faerie Queen, and many others--now incorporate the findings of the latest scholarship. In still another innovation, the entries now offer the reader a guide to turther study and research by referring to the relevant biographies, memoirs, critical studies, and standard scholarly editions of many of the important works. Also, the book's appendices on censorship, copyright, and the calendar have been updated, and an exhaustive cross-referencing system in the manner of the more recent Companiions has been adopted.

About the Editor:

Margaret Drabble's many books include The Middle Ground, The Realms of Gold, The Ice Age, Thank You All Very Much, and A Writer's Britain.

Standard Features:
Among the many notable features distinguishing The Oxford Companion to English Literature are:

· Alphabetically arranged entries

· Entries on important individual works

· Author entries that include concise biographical information and cite their major works

· Many entries on historians, critics, philosophers, and booksellers

· Coverage of many American authors and of foreign language authors famous in translation

· Entries on non-literary figures famous in a literary context, from Penelope Rich to Ottoline Morrell

· Articles on literary societies, clubs, and coffee houses

· Definitions of literary and artistic movements, from Existentialism to the New Criticism, from Neo-classicism to Structuralism

· Entries on prizes, periodicals, newspapers, and literary agents

· Updated appendices on censorship, copyright, and the calendar

· Extensive system of internal cross references, redesigned in the manner of the more recent Companions [via]
More editions of The Oxford Companion to English Literature:
via
The Oxford Companion to the English Language
by Tom McArthur

ISBN 019214183X (0-19-214183-X)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Oxford Companion to the English Language'
Book summary:
Language is the life blood of a culture, and to be interested in culture is in some sense to be interested in language, in the shapes and sounds of words, in the history of reading, writing, and speech, in the endless variety of dialects and slangs, in the incessant creativity of the human mind as it reaches out to others. It is surprising then that until now there has been no major one-volume reference devoted to the most widely dispersed and influential language of our time: the English language.
A language-lover's dream, The Oxford Companion to the English Language is a thousand-page cornucopia covering virtually every aspect of the English language as well as language in general. The range of topics is remarkable, offering a goldmine of information on writing and speech (including entries on grammar, literary terms, linguistics, rhetoric, and style) as well as on such wider issues as sexist language, bilingual education, child language acquisition, and the history of English. There are biographies of Shakespeare, Noah Webster, Noam Chomsky, James Joyce, and many others who have influenced the shape or study of the language; extended articles on everything from psycholinguistics to sign language to tragedy; coverage of every nation in which a significant part of the population speaks English as well as virtually every regional dialect and pidgin (from Gullah and Scouse to Cockney and Tok Pisin). In addition, the Companion provides bibliographies for the larger entries, generous cross-referencing, etymologies for headwords, a chronology of English from Roman times to 1990, and an index of people who appear in entries or bibliographies. And like all Oxford Companions, this volume is packed with delightful surprises. We learn, for instance, that the first Professor of Rhetoric at Harvard later became President (John Quincy Adams); that "slogan" originally meant "war cry"; that the keyboard arrangement QWERTY became popular not because it was efficient but the opposite (it slows down the fingers and keeps them from jamming the keys); that "mbenzi" is Swahili for "rich person" (i.e., one who owns a Mercedes Benz); and that in Scotland, "to dree yir ain weird" means "to follow your own star."
From Scrabble to Websters to TESOL to Gibraltar, the thirty-five hundred entries here offer more information on a wider variety of topics than any other reference on the English language. Featuring the work of nearly a hundred scholars from around the world, this unique volume is the ideal shelf-mate to The Oxford Companion to English Literature. It will captivate everyone who loves language. [via]
More editions of The Oxford Companion to the English Language:
- The Oxford Companion to the English Language: ISBN 019214183X (0-19-214183-X)
  Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr
via
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination
by Toni Morrison

ISBN 0679745424 (0-679-74542-4)
Softcover, Vintage Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination'
Book summary:
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison brings the genius of a master writer to this personal inquiry into the significance of African-Americans in the American literary imagination. Her goal, she states at the outset, is to "put forth an argument for extending the study of American literature...draw a map, so to speak, of a critical geography and use that map to open as much space for discovery, intellectual adventure, and close exploration as did the original charting of the New World--without the mandate for conquest."
Author of Beloved, The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and other vivid portrayals of black American experience, Morrison ponders the effect that living in a historically racialized society has had on American writing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She argues that race has become a metaphor, a way of referring to forces, events, and forms of social decay, economic division, and human panic. Her compelling point is that the central characteristics of American literature individualism, masculinity, the insistence upon innocence coupled to an obsession with figurations of death and hell--are responses to a dark and abiding Africanist presence.
Through her investigation of black characters, narrative strategies, and idiom in the fiction of white American writers, Morrison provides a daring perspective that is sure to alter conventional notions about American literature. She considers Willa Cather and the impact of race on concept and plot; turns to Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville to examine the black force that figures so significantly in the literature of early America; and discusses the implications of the Africanist presence at the heart of Huckleberry Finn. A final chapter on Ernest Hemingway is a brilliant exposition of the racial subtext that glimmers beneath the surface plots of his fiction.
Written with the artistic vision that has earned her a preeminent place in modern letters, Playing in the Dark will be avidly read by Morrison admirers as well as by students, critics, and scholars of American literature.
[via]
More editions of Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination:
- Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination: ISBN 0674673778 (0-674-67377-8)
  Hardcover, Harvard Univ Pr
- Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination: ISBN 0679745424 (0-679-74542-4)
  Softcover, Vintage Books
Preface to Paradise Lost
by C. S. Lewis

ISBN 0195003454 (0-19-500345-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Preface to Paradise Lost'
More editions of Preface to Paradise Lost:
- Preface to Paradise Lost: ISBN 0195003454 (0-19-500345-4)
  Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
via
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
by Azar Nafisi

ISBN 081297106X (0-8129-7106-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books'
Book summary:
An inspired blend of memoir and literary criticism, Reading Lolita in Tehran is a moving testament to the power of art and its ability to change and improve people's lives. In 1995, after resigning from her job as a professor at a university in Tehran due to repressive policies, Azar Nafisi invited seven of her best female students to attend a weekly study of great Western literature in her home. Since the books they read were officially banned by the government, the women were forced to meet in secret, often sharing photocopied pages of the illegal novels. For two years they met to talk, share, and "shed their mandatory veils and robes and burst into color." Though most of the women were shy and intimidated at first, they soon became emboldened by the forum and used the meetings as a springboard for debating the social, cultural, and political realities of living under strict Islamic rule. They discussed their harassment at the hands of "morality guards," the daily indignities of living under the Ayatollah Khomeini's regime, the effects of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, love, marriage, and life in general, giving readers a rare inside look at revolutionary Iran. The books were always the primary focus, however, and they became "essential to our lives: they were not a luxury but a necessity," she writes.
Threaded into the memoir are trenchant discussions of the work of Vladimir Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, and other authors who provided the women with examples of those who successfully asserted their autonomy despite great odds. The great works encouraged them to strike out against authoritarianism and repression in their own ways, both large and small: "There, in that living room, we rediscovered that we were also living, breathing human beings; and no matter how repressive the state became, no matter how intimidated and frightened we were, like Lolita we tried to escape and to create our own little pockets of freedom," she writes. In short, the art helped them to survive. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
More editions of Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books:
- Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books: ISBN 081297106X (0-8129-7106-X)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
via
Readings: Essays & Literary Entertainments
by Michael Dirda

ISBN 0393324893 (0-393-32489-3)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Readings: Essays & Literary Entertainments'
Book summary:
If you have never happened upon Michael's Dirda's "Readings" column in the Washington Post Book World, yours is a sorry fate indeed. One never knows what one will find there, except that it will come filtered through the witty, unpretentious, voracious, book-besotted being that is Michael Dirda. In one column, Dirda introduces Guy Davenport, "the best literary essayist since Randall Jarrell and Cyril Connolly"; just as ardently, he reports elsewhere on a weekend convention of the P.G. Wodehouse Society. Another column finds Dirda spatting with his spouse over the preferred fate of his children's outgrown books (she says get rid of them; he hides them in the garage). Yet another column--several, actually--find him fondling and justifying the purchase of some first edition or another. Dirda writes about books he has (sort of) stolen, teachers who mattered, and an early 11th century Japanese novel (Murasaki Shikubu's The Tale of Genji). He even discusses his secret desire not to read so many books. "I sometimes think that a passion for omnivorous reading has seduced me into a lifetime of one-night stands," he says, "while the less promiscuous have managed to find a single true and more fulfilling love." For our sake, Mr. Dirda, keep up those love affairs--that passion is contagious. Those many Dirda enthusiasms, presented here in a collection of 46 "Readings" columns, will ignite fires aplenty in the curious reader's mind. --Jane Steinberg [via]
More editions of Readings: Essays & Literary Entertainments:
- Readings: Essays & Literary Entertainments: ISBN 0253338247 (0-253-33824-7)
  Hardcover, Indiana Univ Pr
- Readings: Essays & Literary Entertainments: ISBN 0393324893 (0-393-32489-3)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
via
A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas
by Virginia Woolf

ISBN 0701128291 (0-7011-2829-1)
Hardcover, Chatto & Windus

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas'
More editions of A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas:
- A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas: ISBN 0701128291 (0-7011-2829-1)
  Hardcover, Chatto & Windus
via
Room of Ones' Own
by Virginia Woolf

ISBN 1568493665 (1-56849-366-5)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Room of Ones' Own'
Book summary:
Surprisingly, this long essay about society and art and sexism is one of Woolf's most accessible works. Woolf, a major modernist writer and critic, takes us on an erudite yet conversational--and completely entertaining--walk around the history of women in writing, smoothly comparing the architecture of sentences by the likes of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, all the while lampooning the chauvinistic state of university education in the England of her day. When she concluded that to achieve their full greatness as writers women will need a solid income and a privacy, Woolf pretty much invented modern feminist criticism. [via]
More editions of Room of Ones' Own:
via
Seven Types of Ambiguity
by William Empson

ISBN 081120037X (0-8112-0037-X)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Seven Types of Ambiguity'
Book summary:
First published in 1930, Seven Types of Ambiguity has long been recognized as a landmark in the history of English literary criticism.
Revised twice since it first appeared, it has remained one of the most widely read and quoted works of literary analysis.

Ambiguity, according to Empson, includes "any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language." From this definition, broad enough by his own admission sometimes to see "stretched absurdly far," he launches into a brilliant discussion, under seven classifications of differing complexity and depth, of such works, among others, as Shakespeare's plays and the poetry of Chaucer, Donne, Marvell, Pope, Wordsworth, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and T. S. Eliot. [via]
More editions of Seven Types of Ambiguity:
- Seven Types of Ambiguity: ISBN 081120037X (0-8112-0037-X)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
via
Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson
by Camille Paglia

ISBN 0300091273 (0-300-09127-3)
Softcover, Yale University Press

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson'
Book summary:
Vintage 1990 soft cover, perfect condition and ready to ship the same day! [via]
More editions of Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson:
via
Shakespeare: Invention
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 1573221201 (1-57322-120-1)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Shakespeare: Invention'
Book summary:
"Personality, in our sense, is a Shakespearean invention, and is not only Shakespeare's greatest originality but also the authentic cause of his perpetual pervasiveness." So Harold Bloom opines in his outrageously ambitious Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. This is a titanic claim. But then this is a titanic book, wrought by a latter-day critical colossus--and before Bloom is done with us, he has made us wonder whether his vision of Shakespeare's influence on the whole of our lives might not be simply the sober truth. Shakespeare is a feast of arguments and insights, written with engaging frankness and affecting immediacy. Bloom ranges through the Bard's plays in the probable order of their composition, relating play to play and character to character, maintaining all the while a shrewd grasp of Shakespeare's own burgeoning sensibility.
It is a long and fascinating itinerary, and one littered with thousands of sharp insights. Listen to Bloom on Romeo and Juliet: "The Nurse and Mercutio, both of them audience favorites, are nevertheless bad news, in different but complementary ways." On The Merchant of Venice: "To reduce him to contemporary theatrical terms, Shylock would be an Arthur Miller protagonist displaced into a Cole Porter musical, Willy Loman wandering about in Kiss Me Kate." On As You Like It: "Rosalind is unique in Shakespeare, perhaps indeed in Western drama, because it is so difficult to achieve a perspective upon her that she herself does not anticipate and share." Bloom even offers some belated vocational counseling to Falstaff, identifying him as an Elizabethan Mr. Chips: "Falstaff is more than skeptical, but he is too much of a teacher (his true vocation, more than highwayman) to follow skepticism out to its nihilistic borders, as Hamlet does."
In the end, it doesn't matter very much whether we agree with all or any of these ideas. What does matter is that Bloom's capacious book sends us hurrying back to some of the central texts of our civilization. "The ultimate use of Shakespeare," the author asserts, "is to let him teach you to think too well, to whatever truth you can sustain without perishing." Bloom himself has made excellent use of his hero's instruction, and now he teaches us all to do the same. --Daniel Hintzsche [via]
More editions of Shakespeare: Invention:
- Shakespeare: Invention: ISBN 1573221201 (1-57322-120-1)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
via
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 157322751X (1-57322-751-X)
Softcover, Riverhead Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human'
Book summary:
"Personality, in our sense, is a Shakespearean invention, and is not only Shakespeare's greatest originality but also the authentic cause of his perpetual pervasiveness." So Harold Bloom opines in his outrageously ambitious Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. This is a titanic claim. But then this is a titanic book, wrought by a latter-day critical colossus--and before Bloom is done with us, he has made us wonder whether his vision of Shakespeare's influence on the whole of our lives might not be simply the sober truth. Shakespeare is a feast of arguments and insights, written with engaging frankness and affecting immediacy. Bloom ranges through the Bard's plays in the probable order of their composition, relating play to play and character to character, maintaining all the while a shrewd grasp of Shakespeare's own burgeoning sensibility.
It is a long and fascinating itinerary, and one littered with thousands of sharp insights. Listen to Bloom on Romeo and Juliet: "The Nurse and Mercutio, both of them audience favorites, are nevertheless bad news, in different but complementary ways." On The Merchant of Venice: "To reduce him to contemporary theatrical terms, Shylock would be an Arthur Miller protagonist displaced into a Cole Porter musical, Willy Loman wandering about in Kiss Me Kate." On As You Like It: "Rosalind is unique in Shakespeare, perhaps indeed in Western drama, because it is so difficult to achieve a perspective upon her that she herself does not anticipate and share." Bloom even offers some belated vocational counseling to Falstaff, identifying him as an Elizabethan Mr. Chips: "Falstaff is more than skeptical, but he is too much of a teacher (his true vocation, more than highwayman) to follow skepticism out to its nihilistic borders, as Hamlet does."
In the end, it doesn't matter very much whether we agree with all or any of these ideas. What does matter is that Bloom's capacious book sends us hurrying back to some of the central texts of our civilization. "The ultimate use of Shakespeare," the author asserts, "is to let him teach you to think too well, to whatever truth you can sustain without perishing." Bloom himself has made excellent use of his hero's instruction, and now he teaches us all to do the same. --Daniel Hintzsche [via]
More editions of Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human:
- Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human: ISBN 157322751X (1-57322-751-X)
  Softcover, Riverhead Books
Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature
by Jonathan D. Culler

ISBN 0415289890 (0-415-28989-0)
Softcover, Routledge

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature'
More editions of Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature:
The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry
by Cleanth Brooks

ISBN 0156957051 (0-15-695705-1)
Softcover, Harcourt

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry'
More editions of The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry:
- The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry: ISBN 0234771089 (0-234-77108-9)
  Hardcover, Dobson
- The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry: ISBN 0156957051 (0-15-695705-1)
  Softcover, Harcourt
via
The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 1573225142 (1-57322-514-2)
Softcover, Riverhead Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages'
Book summary:
Discussed and debated, revered and reviled, Bloom's tome reinvigorates and re-examines Western Literature, arguing against the politicization of reading. His erudite passion will encourage you to hurry and finish his book so you can pick up Shakespeare, Austen and Dickens once again to rediscover their original magic. In addition, his appendix listing of the "future" canon - the books today that will be timeless tomorrow - is sure to be the template for future debate. [via]
More editions of The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages:
- The Western Canon : The Books and School of the Ages: ISBN 0151957479 (0-15-195747-9)
  Hardcover, Harcourt
- The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages: ISBN 1573225142 (1-57322-514-2)
  Softcover, Riverhead Books
via
The White Goddess : A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth
by Robert Graves, Grevel Lindop

ISBN 1857542487 (1-85754-248-7)
Hardcover, Carcanet Press, Limited

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The White Goddess : A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth'
Book summary:
Robert Graves, the late British poet and novelist, was also known for his studies of the mythological and psychological sources of poetry. With The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, Graves was able to combine many of his passions into one work. While the book is so poetically written that many of the passages amount to prose poems, it is also frequently plot driven enough to feel like a novel, and it is rich with scholarly insight into the deep wells of poetry. Especially fascinating is the chapter in which Graves explores the ancient and ongoing practice of poets' invoking the muse. Graves details the practice in both the Eastern and Western literary traditions, and shows specific similarities and differences among Greek, British, and Irish tales and myths about the muse. Graves has much to offer students of history and myth, but poetry lovers will also be fascinated with The White Goddess. [via]
More editions of The White Goddess : A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth:
- The White Goddess : A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth: ISBN 1857542487 (1-85754-248-7)
  Hardcover, Carcanet Press, Limited