Virgil became a school author in his own lifetime and the centre of the Western canon for the next 1800 years, exerting a major influence on European literature, art, and politics. This Companion is d
Brian Friel is widely recognized as Ireland's greatest living playwright, winning an international reputation through such acclaimed works as Translations (1980) and Dancing at Lughnasa (1990). This c
The Irish novel has had a distinguished history. It spans such diverse authors as James Joyce, George Moore, Maria Edgeworth, Bram Stoker, Flann O'Brien, Samuel Beckett, Lady Morgan, John Banville, an
Albert Camus is one of the iconic figures of twentieth-century French literature, one of France's most widely read modern literary authors and one of the youngest winners of the Nobel Prize for Litera
Once viewed solely in relation to the history of feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft is now recognized as a writer of formidable talent across a range of genres, including journalism, letters and travel wri
Margaret Atwood's international celebrity as a writer, cultural critic, and media star has given new visibility to Canadian literature in English. This Companion, with essays by twelve leading interna
"Cicero was one of classical antiquity's most prolific, varied and self-revealing authors. His letters, speeches, treatises and poetry chart a political career marked by personal struggle and failure
The extent to which American poetry reinvented itself after World War II is a testament to the changing social, political and economic landscape of twentieth-century American life. Registering an important shift in the way scholars contextualize modern and contemporary American literature, this Companion explores how American poetry has documented and, at times, helped propel the literary and cultural revolutions of the past sixty-five years. This Companion sheds new light on the Beat, Black Arts and other movements while examining institutions that govern poetic practice in the United States today. The text also introduces seminal figures like Sylvia Plath, John Ashbery and Gwendolyn Brooks while situating them alongside phenomena such as the 'academic poet' and popular forms such as spoken word and rap, revealing the breadth of their shared history. Students, scholars and readers will find this Companion an indispensable guide to post-war and late twentieth-century American poetry.
This Companion focuses on the novel as a global genre with a 2,000-year history. The first section includes an examination of the various genres out of which it emerged (epic, history, romance, the picaresque) and the different ways in which fiction and realism (magical, hyper, and social) were developed in response to specific political, social, and economic forces. The second section focuses on how the novel works, considering how it has played a crucial role in the formation of more abstract social, political, and familial identities. The third section considers what the novel has become and will continue to become in the twenty-first century. It examines the recent interest in graphic novels as well as data, digitization, and a global literary marketplace's role in shaping the future of the novel. This book will be a key resource for students and scholars studying the novel as a genre.
