Bøker i Literature in Context-serien

"Providing a multi-faceted survey of Luigi Pirandello's life and works, this volume explores his sensitivity to place alongside the intellectuals and dramatists who shaped his perspective. It reveals how profound shifts in science, philosophy, culture, and politics at the fin-de-siâecle fashioned him into a revolutionary playwright of his century"--

The German academic and writer W. G. Sebald made an astounding ascent into the canon of world literature. In this volume, leading experts from both the English- and the German-speaking worlds explore his celebrated prose works published in the short span from 1996 to his premature death in 2001. Special attention is paid to Sebald's unpublished texts and books awaiting translation into English. The volume ¿ illustrated with many unpublished archive images ¿ scrutinizes the dual nature of Sebald's life and work, located between Germany and England, academic and literary writing, vilification and idolization. Through nearly forty essays on a broad range of topics, W. G. Sebald in Context achieves a revision of our understanding of Sebald, defying many clichés about him. Particular attention is paid to the manifold ways in which Sebald's writings exerted a legacy far beyond literature, especially in the areas of art, cinema, and popular music.

"Daniel Defoe established the genre of the novel with Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoe. He also wrote pioneering works of non-fiction and verse. This collection of short, accessible essays by leading scholars helps students and general readers understand Defoe's writing and the vibrant culture in which he lived"--

The definitive guide to Moliere's world and his afterlife, this is an accessible contextual guide for academics, undergraduates and theatre professionals alike. Interdisciplinary and diverse in scope, each chapter offers a different perspective on the social, cultural, intellectual, and theatrical environment within which Moliere operated, as well as demonstrating his subsequent impact both within France and across the world. Offering fresh insight for those working in the fields of French Studies, Theatre and Performance Studies and French History, Moliere in Context is an exceptional tribute to the premier French dramatist on the 400th anniversary of his birth.

"Salman Rushdie in Context discusses Rushdie's life and work in the context of the multiple geographies he has inhabited and the wider socio-cultural contexts in which his writing is emerging, published and read. This book reveals the evolving political trajectory around transnationalism, multiculturalism and its discontents, so prominently engaged with by Salman Rushdie in relation to South Asia, its diasporas, Britain, and the USA in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Focused on the aesthetic, biographical, cultural, creative, historical and literary contexts of his works, the book reveals his deep engagement with processes of decolonization, emergent nationalisms in South Asia, Europe and the USA, and diasporic identity constructions and how they have been affected by globalisation. The book traces how, through his fiction and non-fiction, Rushdie has profoundly shaped the discussion of important questions of global citizenship and migration that continue to resonate today"--

Elizabeth Bishop is increasingly recognised as one of the twentieth century's most original writers. Consisting of thirty-five ground-breaking essays by an international team of authors, including biographers, literary critics, poets and translators, this volume addresses the biographical and literary inception of Bishop's originality, from her formative upbringing in New England and Nova Scotia to long residences in New York, France, Florida and Brazil. Her poetry, prose, letters, translations and visual art are analysed in turn, followed by detailed studies of literary movements such as surrealism and modernism that influenced her artistic development. Bishop's encounters with nature, music, psychoanalysis and religion receive extended treatment, likewise her interest in dreams and humour. Essays also investigate the impact of twentieth-century history and politics on Bishop's life writing, and what it means to read Bishop via eco-criticism, postcolonial theory and queer studies.

"Premier playwright of modern theater and trailblazer of the short story, Anton Chekhov was also a practising doctor, journalist, writer of comic sketches, philanthropist and activist. This volume provides an accessible guide to Chekhov's multifarious interests and influences, with over 30 succinct chapters covering his rich intellectual milieu and his tumultuous socio-political environment, as well as the legacy of his work in over two centuries of interdisciplinary cultures and media around the world. With a Preface by Cornel West, a chronology and Further Reading list, this collection is the essential guide to Chekhov's writing and the manifold worlds he inhabited"--

"Langston Hughes was among the most influential African American writers of the twentieth century. He inspired and challenged readers from Harlem to the Caribbean, Europe, South America, Asia, the African continent, and beyond. To study Langston Hughes is to develop a new sense of the twentieth century. He was more than a man of his times; emerging as a key member of the Harlem Renaissance, his poems, plays, journalism, translations, and prose fiction documented and shaped the world around him. The twenty-nine essays in this volume engage his at times conflicting investments in populist and modernist literature, his investments in freedom in and beyond the US, and the many genres through which he wrote. Langston Hughes in Context considers the places and experiences that shaped him, the social and cultural contexts in which he wrote, thought and travelled, and the international networks that forged and secured his life and reputation"--

Tolstoy's life and thought engaged a vast array of national and international contexts: historical, religious, scientific, philosophical, socio-political, and artistic. This volume introduces those contexts and situates Tolstoy-the man and the writer-in the rich and tumultuous period in which his thought and creative output came to fruition.

Thirty-eight authoritative and lively essays by an international team of scholars examine a full range of Blake's works from lyrical songs to later myth, from writing to artworks, situating them in historical and cultural contexts. Research driven yet accessibly written, the essays will appeal to students, teachers, and academic experts alike.

Provides crucial biographical, critical, historical, and cultural context for the works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Britain's first feminist and political theorist. Leading scholars provide students and scholars of eighteenth-century feminism, literature, social, and political theory with essential background to understand Wollstonecraft's diverse writing.

This book provides a comprehensive, indispensable map for readers at all levels to explore the pivotal contexts, shaping events, and enduring concerns informing the diverse body of work of one of the most consequential writers of the late 20th century and the turn of the millennium.

This book is for an academic readership in Latin American and world literatures. It offers unprecedented coverage of the principal contexts in which leading Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) read and wrote, including family and Argentine history, the Western cultural tradition, both learned and popular, and the Middle East.

Don DeLillo In Context benefits scholars and students interested in intersections between his literature and its contexts. Essays examine how geography, biography, history, media studies, culture, philosophy, and the writing process provide critical frameworks and ways of reading and understanding his body of work.

This book guides the reader through the intersecting fields of biography, literary culture and reception, and the intellectual and cultural movements informing the history and politics of the Romantic period and in turn the life and works of Lord Byron (1788-1824).

This book provides fresh perspectives on some of the most important people and places in Ellison's life, and explores where his work and biography cross paths with some of the major topics of his time. It will be a key resource to scholars, students and teachers interested in Ralph Ellison.

Richard Wright was one of the most influential and complex African American writers of the twentieth century. This book gathers thirty-three new essays by an international group of scholars relating Wright's multi-faceted writings to contexts essential to understanding them: biographical, regional, social, literary, and intellectual.

This volume is for undergraduate and graduate students as well as academic scholars. The short, focused chapters offer students clear and concise overviews of contexts that shape Mailer's work, without assuming in-depth knowledge of his oeuvre. Simultaneously, the chapters also offer seasoned scholars jumping off points for further research.

Bertolt Brecht in Context examines Brecht's significance and contributions as a writer and the most influential playwright of the twentieth century, along with his continued impact on theater around the world. It also examines Brecht's contributions to revolutionary thought and to poetry and his response to twentieth-century German history.

Situating Elizabeth Bishop's writing within a range of biographical, historical, literary and philosophical contexts, including the reception of her work and its continuing influence on contemporary poetry, this book will be a vital resource for students and scholars of twentieth-century American, Canadian and Pan American literature.

Tom Stoppard in Context provides cultural, historical, and intellectual contexts to help readers enjoy one of the most important modern playwrights. More than thirty essays on topics ranging from science to screenwriting help illuminate Stoppard's rich body of work.

This volume supports Chaucer's modern readers by delivering the essential contexts - literary, historical, cultural, social, aesthetic, spiritual, philosophical, economic, psychological, linguistic and scientific - through which to read, interpret and enjoy his works with greater confidence and independence.

Short, lively, and eminently readable chapters, written by leading experts in early modern studies, illuminate various aspects of Donne's life, work, career, and reputation. These engaging chapters are supplemented by a chronology of Donne's life and works and a comprehensive bibliography.

Ibsen in Context identifies thirty different contexts for understanding Ibsen's life and career at home, and considers how his works have been received abroad. The collection offers a rich interdisciplinary understanding, with chapters ranging across cultural and aesthetic contexts including feminism, scientific discovery, music, and visual arts.

Brings together for the first time in one volume today's leading scholars of this major theatre tradition. The book provides a state-of-the-art survey of current thinking on the commedia and discusses both the early modern period and the reinvention of the commedia dell'arte in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This volume is for undergraduate and graduate students, and academic scholars studying and teaching the work of Philip Roth. The short, focused chapters offer students clear and concise overviews of contexts that shape Roth's work, without assuming in-depth knowledge. The chapters also offer scholars jumping off points for further research.

Indispensable for understanding the historical, cultural and intellectual contexts of Nabokov's work for students of English, American and Russian literary and cultural studies. This book is also essential reading for established scholars wanting to keep up with the new approaches and methodologies in Nabokov studies which this collection showcases.

This book is for an academic readership in Latin American and world literatures. It offers unprecedented coverage of the principal contexts in which leading Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) read and wrote, including family and Argentine history, the Western cultural tradition, both learned and popular, and the Middle East.

Provides crucial biographical, critical, historical, and cultural context for the works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Britain's first feminist and political theorist. Leading scholars provide students and scholars of eighteenth-century feminism, literature, social, and political theory with essential background to understand Wollstonecraft's diverse writing.

This collection will be useful to scholars, students, and thoughtful readers as they seek to come to terms with one of the most dense and philosophically rich authors in the contemporary canon. To understand him, one must understand a host of ideas and perspectives.