Theory Criticism category: 49531 books

With its fresh translations by newer voices in the field, its broad scope, and its flowing style, this anthology places the immense riches of Chinese literature within easy reach. Ranging from the beginnings to 1919, this abridged version of The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature...

When he stands before Giorgione's La Tempesta, Booker Prize-winning author John Berger sees not only the painting but our whole notion of time, sweeping us away from a lost Eden. A photograph of a gravely joyful crowd gathered on a Prague street in November 1989 provokes reflection on the meaning...

Introducing students to the full range of approaches to the study of Renaissance poetry that they are likely to encounter in their course of study, Perspectives on Renaissance Poetry is an authoritative and accessible guide to the verse of the Early Modern period. Each chapter covers a major figure...

First published in 1957. This edition re-issues the second edition of 1965. Recognized as one of the leading books in its field, The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare presents the most comprehensive account available of the English historical drama from its beginning to the closing...

In 1935, the English writer Stephen Spender wrote that the historical pressures of his era should "turn the reader's and writer's attention outwards from himself to the world." Combining historical, formalist, and archival approaches, Thomas S. Davis examines late modernism's decisive turn...

The Cambridge History of Postmodern Literature offers a comprehensive survey of the field, from its emergence in the mid-twentieth century to the present day. It offers an unparalleled examination of all facets of postmodern writing that helps readers to understand how fiction and poetry, literary...

What is poetry? Often it is understood as a largely self-enclosed verbal system—“suspended from any mutual interaction with alien discourse,” in the words of Mikhail Bakhtin. But in Poetry and Its Others, Jahan Ramazani reveals modern and contemporary poetry’s animated dialogue with other...

The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Environment is an authoritative guide to the exciting new interdisciplinary field of environmental literary criticism. The collection traces the development of ecocriticism from its origins in European pastoral literature and offers fifteen rigorous but...

Although the short story has existed in various forms for centuries, it has particularly flourished during the last hundred years. Reader's Companion to the Short Story in English includes alphabetically-arranged entries for 50 English-language short story writers from around the world. Most of these...

Revered by his cinematic peers, William Wyler (1902–1981) was one of the most honored and successful directors of Hollywood’s Golden Age, with such classics as Dead End, Wuthering Heights, The Little Foxes, Roman Holiday and Ben-Hur. He won three directing Oscars and elicited over a dozen Oscar-winning...

Pablo* *Baler studies the ruptures and continuities linking the de-centered dynamics of the 17thcentury to the logic of instability that permeates 20th century visual and literary production in Latin America. Bringing philosophy, literary interpretation, art criticism, and a poetic approach to the...

While most people associate Japanese film with modern directors like Akira Kurosawa, Japan’s cinema has a rich tradition going back to the silent era. Japan’s "pure film movement" of the 1910s is widely held to mark the birth of film theory as we know it and is a touchstone for historians of early...

Now in paperback, Fredric Jameson’s most wide-ranging work seeks to crystalize a definition of ”postmodernism”. Jameson’s inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from “high” art to “low” from market ideology to architecture, from painting to “punk” film, from video art to literature.  

First published in 1899*, The Symbolist Movement in Literature* was a highly influential work of criticism and introduced the French Symbolists to an Anglophone readership. Arthur Symons’s interest in writers such as Verlaine and Mallarmé puts him at the heart of contemporary debates about Decadence...