Poetry and experience

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Marian Eide

"Marian Eide argues that the central concern of James Joyce's writing was the creation of a literary ethics. Eide examines Joyce's ethical preoccupations throughout his work, particularly the tension between his commitment as an artist and his social obligations as a father and citizen during a tumultuous period of European history. Eide argues that his narrative suggests ethics, which etymologically signifies both "character" and "habitat," might be understood as an interaction between immediate and intimate processes (character) and more external enduring structures (habitat). Drawing on feminist theory, Eide focuses on the ideas of alterity and difference. The literary ethics developed in this book proceed from a textual focus in order to examine how our assumptions about what it means to read and interpret produce within each reader an implicit ethical practice. This is the first study devoted to Joyce's ethical philosophy as it emerges in his writing."--Jacket.

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Jonathan Boulter

Written in a clear, accessible language, this guide challenges and encourages students to grapple with the difficult ideas and questions posed by Beckett's texts.

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Bernard Hamon

A travers cet essai critique, Bernard Hamon s'appuie sur les textes de George Sand pour montrer que sa pensée religieuse ne peut entrer "dans le moule de religions existantes". Spiritualiste et humaniste, elle est "empreinte d'une religiosité cosmique en dehors de toute confession". "Je suis toujours croyante, tout à fait croyante en Dieu. La vie éternelle. Le mal un jour vaincu par la science. La science éclairée par l'amour. Mais les symboles, les figures, les dieux humains ? Bonjour ! J'ai dépassé tout cela. Je suis entrée dans l'univers, et voilà." Extrait de Journal intime.

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Richard Bradford

After reading a few pages of a book, you might find yourself gripped, moved, bored, or--in the case of far too many literary "classics"--surprised that it ever got into print at all. While initial impressions are often influenced by personal tastes, one may also be reacting to writing that is very good--or genuinely bad. But who decides what constitutes "good" literature? If you wish to know the reasons why a book is considered good or bad, you'd be hard-pressed to find the answers in a university literature course. Exploring issues that academics have studiously avoided for years, this book reveals why certain works and authors are treated as superior to others, and boldly questions the literary establishment's criteria for creating an imperium of "great" writers. Author Richard Bradford shows us how to articulate our own informed opinions on the qualities or deficiencies of a literary work--whether the author in question is James Joyce, Jeffrey Archer, or the Bard of Avon himself. Also covered are: self-appointed arbiters of taste in the literary world; academia's wretched influence in shaping literary merit (or to be more accurate its failure to say anything relevant); whether popular literature's bad rap is warranted; does reading and studying literature do us any good?; the dreadful legacy of modernism; and more. It also asks this frank question of one of literature's greatest sacred cows--who says we can't dislike Shakespeare? Lively and provocative, this book is certain to raise a few eyebrows while elevating the level of debate about the true nature of literary merit.--Adapted from back cover.