Derek Attridge – författare

What is distinctive about the cultural practice called ''literature''? How does it benefit individuals and society? How do literary works retain their importance and their capacity to give pleasure over decades and centuries? What constitutes responsible criticism? These are some of the questions addressed in this book, which develops the arguments put forward in Derek Attridge''s influential study The Singularity of Literature (2004). Beginning with anextended cross-examination in the form of an interview addressing a range of topics relating to the work of literature (understood both as the activity of the writer and as the text itself) and the practices of literary reading and literary criticism, it asks what it means to ''do justice to'' a work of literature,provides a full account of the concept of singularity, considers the problematic power of criticism, and advances an account of the role of context in the writing and reading of literary works. In other chapters it explores the issue of cultural difference in responses to literature, discusses the working of metaphor, questions the attribution of knowledge to literary works, and addresses the topics of affect and hospitality. The book follows through the consequences of regarding the singularand inventive work of literature as an event that takes place anew each time it is read, providing an opening to an otherness excluded by prevailing cultural norms and habits of thought and feeling. Although the focus of the book is on literature, the arguments are relevant to all the arts, and engagewith the thought of major aesthetic theorists in a number of traditions.

The contemporary reader of English poetry is able to take pleasure in the sounds and movements of the English language in works written over the past eight centuries, and to find poems that convey powerful emotions and vivid images from this entire period. This book investigates the ways in which poets have exploited the resources of the language as a spoken medium - its characteristic rhythms, its phonetic qualities, its deployment of syntax - to write verse thatcontinues to move and delight. The chapters in the first of the two parts examine a number of issues relating to poetic form: the resurgence of interest in formal questions in recent years, the role of syntactic phrasing in the operation of poetry, the function of rhyme, and the relation between soundand sense. The second part is concerned with rhythm and metre, explaining and demonstrating ''beat prosody'' as a tool of poetic analysis, and discussing three major traditions in English versification: the free four-beat form used in much popular verse, the controlled power of the iambic pentameter, and the twentieth-century invention of free verse. All these topics are discussed by means of particular case studies, from the metrical form of a thirteenth-century lyric to uses of sound in recentpoetry. Among the many poets whose work is considered are Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Keats, Tennyson, Hardy, Yeats, Frost, Ashbery, Hill, Plath, Paterson, and Prynne. Drawing on Derek Attridge''s forty-five years of engagement with the forms of poetry, this volume provides extensive evidence of theimportance of close attention to the moving and sounding of language in the poems we enjoy.

Was the experience of poetry—or a cultural practice we now call poetry—continuously available across the two-and-a-half millennia from the composition of the Homeric epics to the publication of Ben Jonson''s Works and the death of Shakespeare in 1616? How did the pleasure afforded by the crafting of language into memorable and moving rhythmic forms play a part in the lives of hearers and readers in Ancient Greece and Rome, Europe during Late Antiquity andthe Middle Ages, and Britain during the Renaissance?In tackling these questions, this book first examines the evidence for the performance of the Iliad and the Odyssey and of Ancient Greek lyric poetry, the impact of the invention of writing on Alexandrian verse, the performances of poetry that characterized Ancient Rome, and the private and public venues for poetic experience in Late Antiquity. It moves on to deal with medieval verse, exploring the oral traditions that spread across Europe in the vernacular languages, theplace of manuscript transmission, the shift from roll to codex and from papyrus to parchment, and the changing audiences for poetry. A final part investigates the experience of poetry in the English Renaissance, from the manuscript verse of Henry VIII''s court to the anthologies and collections of the late Elizabethan era.Among the topics considered in this part are the importance of the printed page, the continuing significance of manuscript circulation, the performance of poetry in pageants and progresses, and the appearance of poets on the Elizabethan stage. In tracking both continuity and change across these many centuries, the book throws fresh light on the role and importance of poetry in western culture.

Was the experience of poetry—or a cultural practice we now call poetry—continuously available across the two-and-a-half millennia from the composition of the Homeric epics to the publication of Ben Jonson''s Works and the death of Shakespeare in 1616? How did the pleasure afforded by the crafting of language into memorable and moving rhythmic forms play a part in the lives of hearers and readers in Ancient Greece and Rome, Europe during Late Antiquity andthe Middle Ages, and Britain during the Renaissance?In tackling these questions, this book first examines the evidence for the performance of the Iliad and the Odyssey and of Ancient Greek lyric poetry, the impact of the invention of writing on Alexandrian verse, the performances of poetry that characterized Ancient Rome, and the private and public venues for poetic experience in Late Antiquity. It moves on to deal with medieval verse, exploring the oral traditions that spread across Europe in the vernacular languages, theplace of manuscript transmission, the shift from roll to codex and from papyrus to parchment, and the changing audiences for poetry. A final part investigates the experience of poetry in the English Renaissance, from the manuscript verse of Henry VIII''s court to the anthologies and collections of the late Elizabethan era.Among the topics considered in this part are the importance of the printed page, the continuing significance of manuscript circulation, the performance of poetry in pageants and progresses, and the appearance of poets on the Elizabethan stage. In tracking both continuity and change across these many centuries, the book throws fresh light on the role and importance of poetry in western culture.

James Joyce's Ulysses is probably the most famous-or notorious-novel published in the twentieth century. Its length and difficulty mean that readers often turn to critical studies to help them in getting the most out of it. But the vast quantity of secondary literature on the book poses problems for readers, who often don't know where to begin. This casebook includes some of the most influential critics to have written on Joyce, such as Hugh Kenner and Fritz Senn, as well as newer voices who have made a considerable impact in recent years. A wide range of critical schools is represented, from textual analysis to historical and psychoanalytic approaches, from feminism to post-colonialism. One essay considers the relation between art and life, nature and culture, in Ulysses, while another explores the implications of the impassioned debates about the proper editing of Joyce's great work. In an iconoclastic discussion of the book, Leo Bersani finds reasons for giving up reading Joyce. All the contributions are characterized by scrupulous attention to Joyce's words and a sense of the powerful challenge his work offers to our ways of thinking about ourselves, our world, and our language. Also included are records of some of the conversations Joyce had with his friend Frank Budgen during the composition of Ulysses in Zurich, and in an appendix readers will find a version of the schema which Joyce drew up as a guide to his book. Derek Attridge provides an introduction that offers advice on reading Ulysses for the first time, an account of the remarkable story of its composition, and an outline of the history of the critical reception that has played such an important part in our understanding and enjoyment of this extraordinary work.

James Joyce's Ulysses is probably the most famous-or notorious-novel published in the twentieth century. Its length and difficulty mean that readers often turn to critical studies to help them in getting the most out of it. But the vast quantity of secondary literature on the book poses problems for readers, who often don't know where to begin. This casebook includes some of the most influential critics to have written on Joyce, such as Hugh Kenner and Fritz Senn, as well as newer voices who have made a considerable impact in recent years. A wide range of critical schools is represented, from textual analysis to historical and psychoanalytic approaches, from feminism to post-colonialism. One essay considers the relation between art and life, nature and culture, in Ulysses, while another explores the implications of the impassioned debates about the proper editing of Joyce's great work. In an iconoclastic discussion of the book, Leo Bersani finds reasons for giving up reading Joyce. All the contributions are characterized by scrupulous attention to Joyce's words and a sense of the powerful challenge his work offers to our ways of thinking about ourselves, our world, and our language. Also included are records of some of the conversations Joyce had with his friend Frank Budgen during the composition of Ulysses in Zurich, and in an appendix readers will find a version of the schema which Joyce drew up as a guide to his book. Derek Attridge provides an introduction that offers advice on reading Ulysses for the first time, an account of the remarkable story of its composition, and an outline of the history of the critical reception that has played such an important part in our understanding and enjoyment of this extraordinary work.

The contemporary reader of English poetry is able to take pleasure in the sounds and movements of the English language in works written over the past eight centuries, and to find poems that convey powerful emotions and vivid images from this entire period. This book investigates the ways in which poets have exploited the resources of the language as a spoken medium--its characteristic rhythms, its phonetic qualities, its deployment of syntax--to write verse that continues to move and delight. The chapters in the first of the two parts examine a number of issues relating to poetic form: the resurgence of interest in formal questions in recent years, the role of syntactic phrasing in the operation of poetry, the function of rhyme, and the relation between sound and sense. The second part is concerned with rhythm and metre, explaining and demonstrating 'beat prosody' as a tool of poetic analysis, and discussing three major traditions in English versification: the free four-beat form used in much popular verse, the controlled power of the iambic pentameter, and the twentieth-century invention of free verse. All these topics are discussed by means of particular case studies, from the metrical form of a thirteenth-century lyric to uses of sound in recent poetry. Among the many poets whose work is considered are Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Keats, Tennyson, Hardy, Yeats, Frost, Ashbery, Hill, Plath, Paterson, and Prynne. Drawing on Derek Attridge's thirty-five years of engagement with the forms of poetry, this volume provides extensive evidence of the importance of close attention to the moving and sounding of language in the poems we enjoy.

What is distinctive about the cultural practice called 'literature'? How does it benefit individuals and society? How do literary works retain their importance and their capacity to give pleasure over decades and centuries? What constitutes responsible criticism? These are some of the questions addressed in this book, which develops the arguments put forward in Derek Attridge's influential study The Singularity of Literature (2004). Beginning with an extended cross-examination in the form of an interview addressing a range of topics relating to the work of literature (understood both as the activity of the writer and as the text itself) and the practices of literary reading and literary criticism, it asks what it means to 'do justice to' a work of literature, provides a full account of the concept of singularity, considers the problematic power of criticism, and advances an account of the role of context in the writing and reading of literary works. In other chapters it explores the issue of cultural difference in responses to literature, discusses the working of metaphor, questions the attribution of knowledge to literary works, and addresses the topics of affect and hospitality. The book follows through the consequences of regarding the singular and inventive work of literature as an event that takes place anew each time it is read, providing an opening to an otherness excluded by prevailing cultural norms and habits of thought and feeling. Although the focus of the book is on literature, the arguments are relevant to all the arts, and engage with the thought of major aesthetic theorists in a number of traditions.

What is distinctive about the cultural practice called 'literature'? How does it benefit individuals and society? How do literary works retain their importance and their capacity to give pleasure over decades and centuries? What constitutes responsible criticism? These are some of the questions addressed in this book, which develops the arguments put forward in Derek Attridge's influential study The Singularity of Literature (2004). Beginning with an extended cross-examination in the form of an interview addressing a range of topics relating to the work of literature (understood both as the activity of the writer and as the text itself) and the practices of literary reading and literary criticism, it asks what it means to 'do justice to' a work of literature, provides a full account of the concept of singularity, considers the problematic power of criticism, and advances an account of the role of context in the writing and reading of literary works. In other chapters it explores the issue of cultural difference in responses to literature, discusses the working of metaphor, questions the attribution of knowledge to literary works, and addresses the topics of affect and hospitality. The book follows through the consequences of regarding the singular and inventive work of literature as an event that takes place anew each time it is read, providing an opening to an otherness excluded by prevailing cultural norms and habits of thought and feeling. Although the focus of the book is on literature, the arguments are relevant to all the arts, and engage with the thought of major aesthetic theorists in a number of traditions.

Was the experience of poetry--or a cultural practice we now call poetry--continuously available across the two-and-a-half millennia from the composition of the Homeric epics to the publication of Ben Jonson's Works and the death of Shakespeare in 1616? How did the pleasure afforded by the crafting of language into memorable and moving rhythmic forms play a part in the lives of hearers and readers in Ancient Greece and Rome, Europe during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and Britain during the Renaissance? In tackling these questions, this book first examines the evidence for the performance of the Iliad and the Odyssey and of Ancient Greek lyric poetry, the impact of the invention of writing on Alexandrian verse, the performances of poetry that characterized Ancient Rome, and the private and public venues for poetic experience in Late Antiquity. It moves on to deal with medieval verse, exploring the oral traditions that spread across Europe in the vernacular languages, the place of manuscript transmission, the shift from roll to codex and from papyrus to parchment, and the changing audiences for poetry. A final part investigates the experience of poetry in the English Renaissance, from the manuscript verse of Henry VIII's court to the anthologies and collections of the late Elizabethan era. Among the topics considered in this part are the importance of the printed page, the continuing significance of manuscript circulation, the performance of poetry in pageants and progresses, and the appearance of poets on the Elizabethan stage. In tracking both continuity and change across these many centuries, the book throws fresh light on the role and importance of poetry in western culture.

Was the experience of poetry--or a cultural practice we now call poetry--continuously available across the two-and-a-half millennia from the composition of the Homeric epics to the publication of Ben Jonson's Works and the death of Shakespeare in 1616? How did the pleasure afforded by the crafting of language into memorable and moving rhythmic forms play a part in the lives of hearers and readers in Ancient Greece and Rome, Europe during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and Britain during the Renaissance? In tackling these questions, this book first examines the evidence for the performance of the Iliad and the Odyssey and of Ancient Greek lyric poetry, the impact of the invention of writing on Alexandrian verse, the performances of poetry that characterized Ancient Rome, and the private and public venues for poetic experience in Late Antiquity. It moves on to deal with medieval verse, exploring the oral traditions that spread across Europe in the vernacular languages, the place of manuscript transmission, the shift from roll to codex and from papyrus to parchment, and the changing audiences for poetry. A final part investigates the experience of poetry in the English Renaissance, from the manuscript verse of Henry VIII's court to the anthologies and collections of the late Elizabethan era. Among the topics considered in this part are the importance of the printed page, the continuing significance of manuscript circulation, the performance of poetry in pageants and progresses, and the appearance of poets on the Elizabethan stage. In tracking both continuity and change across these many centuries, the book throws fresh light on the role and importance of poetry in western culture.

The contemporary reader of English poetry is able to take pleasure in the sounds and movements of the English language in works written over the past eight centuries, and to find poems that convey powerful emotions and vivid images from this entire period. This book investigates the ways in which poets have exploited the resources of the language as a spoken medium - its characteristic rhythms, its phonetic qualities, its deployment of syntax - to write verse that continues to move and delight. The chapters in the first of the two parts examine a number of issues relating to poetic form: the resurgence of interest in formal questions in recent years, the role of syntactic phrasing in the operation of poetry, the function of rhyme, and the relation between sound and sense. The second part is concerned with rhythm and metre, explaining and demonstrating 'beat prosody' as a tool of poetic analysis, and discussing three major traditions in English versification: the free four-beat form used in much popular verse, the controlled power of the iambic pentameter, and the twentieth-century invention of free verse. All these topics are discussed by means of particular case studies, from the metrical form of a thirteenth-century lyric to uses of sound in recent poetry. Among the many poets whose work is considered are Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Keats, Tennyson, Hardy, Yeats, Frost, Ashbery, Hill, Plath, Paterson, and Prynne. Drawing on Derek Attridge's forty-five years of engagement with the forms of poetry, this volume provides extensive evidence of the importance of close attention to the moving and sounding of language in the poems we enjoy.

Nobel Prize-winning novelist J. M. Coetzee is one of the most widely taught contemporary writers, but also one of the most elusive. Many critics who have addressed his work have devoted themselves to rendering it more accessible and acceptable, often playing down the features that discomfort and perplex his readers. Yet it is just these features, Derek Attridge argues, that give Coetzee''s work its haunting power and offer its greatest rewards. Attridge does justice to this power and these rewards in a study that serves as an introduction for readers new to Coetzee and a stimulus for thought for those who know his work well. Without overlooking the South African dimension of his fiction, Attridge treats Coetzee as a writer who raises questions of central importance to current debates both within literary studies and more widely in the ethical arena. Implicit throughout the book is Attridge''s view that literature, more than philosophy, politics, or even religion, does singular justice to our ethical impulses and acts. Attridge follows Coetzee''s lead in exploring a number of issues such as interpretation and literary judgment, responsibility to the other, trust and betrayal, artistic commitment, confession, and the problematic idea of truth to the self.

This is the first book on the fiction of Zoë Wicomb, a writer long at the forefront of the South African canon and whose international stature was firmly secured with the award of an inaugural Windham Campbell prize at Yale in 2013. It brings together interdisciplinary essays from the UK, USA, South Africa, and Australia, demonstrating Wicomb’s importance as a novelist, short-story writer, and critic. The central focus of the volume is the translocal, a term that navigates the complex and shifting relations between disparate localities, respecting the situatedness of each locality within its immediate geopolitical context, while investigating the connections and contrasts that operate between them. In Wicomb’s case, her work stems from a dual allegiance to two localities, both in her fiction as in her life: South Africa’s Western Cape and the west of Scotland. In tracking the relations, contemporary and historical, between these sites, her fiction reveals a consistent interest in and interrogation of home and belonging, space and place; it also offers telling insights into questions of race and gender. The historical processes of colonization and migration that have produced translocal connections of this kind are central to postcolonial studies, to which this book makes a significant contribution. Exploring the visual and cartographical, and extending debates on the transnational and cosmopolitan that are currently taking place across disciplines, including literary studies, geography, history, politics, and anthropology, the collection covers the range of Wicomb’s work. It also features an unanthologised essay by Wicomb herself, an interview, and a suite of photographs by Sophia Klaase, whose images of Namaqualand inspired Wicomb’s most recent novel, October.

If "event" is a proper name we reserve for monumental changes, crises, transitions and ruptures that are by their very nature unnameable or unthinkable, then this volume is an attempt to set up an encounter between such eventhood as it comes to have a bearing on literary works and the work of reading literature. As the event continues to provide a valuable analytical paradigm for work undertaken within the newer subdisciplines of literary and critical theory, including close reading, bio- politics, world literature, and eco- criticism, this volume makes a concerted effort to update the scholarship in this area and foreground the recent resurgence of interest in the concept. The book provides both a retrospective appraisal of the significance of events to literary studies and the literary humanities, as well as contemporary and prospective appraisals of the same, and thus would appeal scholars and instructors in the areas of literary theory, comparative literature and philosophical aesthetics alike. Along with a specialist focus on thinkers such as Derrida, Badiou, Deleuze and Malabou, the essays in this volume read a wide corpus of literature ranging from Han Kang, Homer, Renee Gladman, Proust and Flaubert to Yoruba ideophones, Browning, Anne Carson, Jenichiro Oyabe and Ben Lerner.

Poet, Thomas Carper, and scholar, Derek Attridge, join forces in Meter and Meaning to present an illuminating and user-friendly way to explore the rhythms of poetry in English. They begin by showing the value of performing any poem aloud, so that we can sense its unique use of rhythm. From this starting point they suggest an entirely fresh, jargon-free approach to reading poetry. Illustrating their 'beat/offbeat' method with a series of exercises, they help readers to appreciate the use of rhythm in poems of all periods and to understand the vital relationship between meter and meaning.Beginning with the very basics, Meter and Meaning enables a smooth progression to an advanced knowledge of poetic rhythms. It is the essential guide to meter for anyone who wants to study, write, better appreciate, or simply enjoy poetry. Carper and Attridge make studying meter a pleasure and reading poetry a revelation.

Poet, Thomas Carper, and scholar, Derek Attridge, join forces in Meter and Meaning to present an illuminating and user-friendly way to explore the rhythms of poetry in English. They begin by showing the value of performing any poem aloud, so that we can sense its unique use of rhythm. From this starting point they suggest an entirely fresh, jargon-free approach to reading poetry. Illustrating their 'beat/offbeat' method with a series of exercises, they help readers to appreciate the use of rhythm in poems of all periods and to understand the vital relationship between meter and meaning.Beginning with the very basics, Meter and Meaning enables a smooth progression to an advanced knowledge of poetic rhythms. It is the essential guide to meter for anyone who wants to study, write, better appreciate, or simply enjoy poetry. Carper and Attridge make studying meter a pleasure and reading poetry a revelation.

First published in 1988, Peculiar Language is now established as one of the most important discussions of the language of literature. This thought-provoking book challenges traditional notions of literary criticism, arguing that all attempts by writers, critics and literary theorists to define the language of literature have involved self-contradiction. Through examination of key moments in literary history, Derek Attridge demonstrates that such contradictions in accounts of literary language are embedded in our cultural concept of 'literature' and asserts that in order to appreciate the forces that determine the limits of literary language, we must look beyond the realm of the 'literary' and embrace the wider political and social sphere. Re-issued as a result of sustained critical interest in the book, this edition includes a new preface by the author.

First published in 1988, Peculiar Language is now established as one of the most important discussions of the language of literature. This thought-provoking book challenges traditional notions of literary criticism, arguing that all attempts by writers, critics and literary theorists to define the language of literature have involved self-contradiction. Through examination of key moments in literary history, Derek Attridge demonstrates that such contradictions in accounts of literary language are embedded in our cultural concept of 'literature' and asserts that in order to appreciate the forces that determine the limits of literary language, we must look beyond the realm of the 'literary' and embrace the wider political and social sphere. Re-issued as a result of sustained critical interest in the book, this edition includes a new preface by the author.

This volume argues that theory, far from being dead, has undergone major shifts in order to come to terms with the most urgent cultural and political questions of today. Offering an overview of theory’s new directions, this groundbreaking collection includes essays on affect, biopolitics, biophilosophy, the aesthetic, and neoliberalism, as well as examinations of established areas such as subaltern studies, the postcolonial, and ethics.Influential figures such as Agamben, Badiou, Arendt, Deleuze, Derrida and Meillassoux are examined in a range of contexts. Gathering together some of the top thinkers in the field, this volume not only speculates on the fate of theory but shows its current diversity, encouraging conversation between divergent strands. Each section places the essays in their contexts and stages a comparison between different but ultimately related ways in which key thinkers are moving beyond poststructuralism.Contributors: Amanda Anderson, Ray Brassier, Adriana Cavarero, Eva Cherniavsky, Rey Chow, Claire Colebrook, Laurent Dubreuil, Roberto Esposito, Simon Gikandi, Martin Hagglünd, Peter Hallward, Brian Massumi, Peter Osborne, Elizabeth Povinelli, William Rasch, Henry Staten, Bernard Stiegler, Eugene Thacker, Cary Wolfe, Linda Zerilli.

This volume argues that theory, far from being dead, has undergone major shifts in order to come to terms with the most urgent cultural and political questions of today. Offering an overview of theory’s new directions, this groundbreaking collection includes essays on affect, biopolitics, biophilosophy, the aesthetic, and neoliberalism, as well as examinations of established areas such as subaltern studies, the postcolonial, and ethics.Influential figures such as Agamben, Badiou, Arendt, Deleuze, Derrida and Meillassoux are examined in a range of contexts. Gathering together some of the top thinkers in the field, this volume not only speculates on the fate of theory but shows its current diversity, encouraging conversation between divergent strands. Each section places the essays in their contexts and stages a comparison between different but ultimately related ways in which key thinkers are moving beyond poststructuralism.Contributors: Amanda Anderson, Ray Brassier, Adriana Cavarero, Eva Cherniavsky, Rey Chow, Claire Colebrook, Laurent Dubreuil, Roberto Esposito, Simon Gikandi, Martin Hagglünd, Peter Hallward, Brian Massumi, Peter Osborne, Elizabeth Povinelli, William Rasch, Henry Staten, Bernard Stiegler, Eugene Thacker, Cary Wolfe, Linda Zerilli.

First published in 1992. "Acts of Literature", compiled in close association with Derrida, brings together for the first time a number of Derrida's writings on literary texts on the question of literature. The essays discuss literary figures such as Rousseau, Mallarme, Joyce, Shakespeare and Kafka. Comprising pieces spanning Derrida's career, the collection includes a substantial new interview with him on questions of literature, deconstruction, politics, feminism and history. Derek Attridge provides an introductory essay on deconstruction and the question of literature, and offers suggestions for further reading. These essays examine the place and function of literature in Western culture. They highlight Derrida's interest in literature as a significant cultural institution and as a peculiarly challenging form of writing, with inescapable consequences for our thinking about philosophy, politics and ethics. This book should be of interest to undergraduates and academics in the field of literary theory and criticism and continental philosophy.

This second edition of The Cambridge Companion to Joyce contains several revised essays, reflecting increasing emphasis on Joyce''s politics, a fresh sense of the importance of his engagement with Ireland, and the changes wrought by gender studies on criticism of his work. This Companion gathers an international team of leading scholars who shed light on Joyce''s work and life. The contributions are informative, stimulating and full of rich and accessible insights which will provoke thought and discussion in and out of the classroom. The Companion''s reading lists and extended bibliography offer readers the necessary tools for further informed exploration of Joyce studies. This volume is designed primarily as a students'' reference work (although it is organised so that it can also be read from cover to cover), and will deepen and extend the enjoyment and understanding of Joyce for the new reader.

South Africa's unique history has produced literatures in many languages, in both oral and written forms, reflecting the diversity in the cultural histories and experiences of its people. The Cambridge History offers a comprehensive, multi-authored history of South African literature in all eleven official languages (and more minor ones) of the country, produced by a team of over forty international experts, including contributors from all of the major regions and language groups of South Africa. It will provide a complete portrait of South Africa's literary production, organised as a chronological history from the oral traditions existing before colonial settlement, to the post-apartheid revision of the past. In a field marked by controversy, this volume is more fully representative than any existing account of South Africa's literary history. It will make a unique contribution to Commonwealth, international and postcolonial studies and serve as a definitive reference work for decades to come.

Sidney's statement in his Apology for Poetry that quantitative verse on the Latin model is more suitable than the accentual verse of the English tradition 'lively to express divers passions, by the low and lofty sound of the well-weighed syllable' is only one of numerous assertions of the superiority of classical over native metres made by English scholars and poets during the Renaissance, stretching from Roger Ascham some twenty years earlier to Ben Jonson some fifty years later.

Recent developments in literary theory (such as structuralism and deconstruction) have come under attack for ignoring history, while historically based approaches have been criticised for failing to take account of the problems inherent in their methodological foundations. This collection of essays is unique in focusing on this central debate in literary studies today: the relation between post-structuralist and historical (especially Marxist) literary theory and criticism. The volume includes a deconstructive reading of Marx, essays which relate history to the philosophical and institutional context, and a number of studies of particular texts, literary theory with particular force.

This is the first introduction to rhythm and meter that begins where students are: as speakers of English familiar with the rhythms of ordinary spoken language, and of popular verse such as nursery rhymes, song and rap. Poetic Rhythm builds on this knowledge and experience, taking the reader from the most basic questions about the rhythms of spoken English to the elaborate achievements of past and present poets. Terminology is straightforward, the simple system of scansion that is introduced is suitable for both handwriting and computer use, and there are frequent practical exercises. Chapters deal with the elements of verse, English speech rhythms, the major types of metrical poetry, free verse, and the role of sense and syntax. Poetic Rhythm will help readers of poetry experience and enjoy its rhythms in all their power, subtlety and diversity, and will serve as an invaluable tool for those who wish to write or discuss poetry in English at a basic as well as a more advanced level.

This second edition of The Cambridge Companion to Joyce contains several revised essays, reflecting increasing emphasis on Joyce's politics, a fresh sense of the importance of his engagement with Ireland, and the changes wrought by gender studies on criticism of his work. This Companion gathers an international team of leading scholars who shed light on Joyce's work and life. The contributions are informative, stimulating and full of rich and accessible insights which will provoke thought and discussion in and out of the classroom. The Companion's reading lists and extended bibliography offer readers the necessary tools for further informed exploration of Joyce studies. This volume is designed primarily as a students' reference work (although it is organised so that it can also be read from cover to cover), and will deepen and extend the enjoyment and understanding of Joyce for the new reader.

During the final years of the apartheid era and the subsequent transition to democracy, South African literary writing caught the world's attention as never before. Writers responded to the changing political situation and its daily impact on the country's inhabitants with works that recorded or satirised state-enforced racism, explored the possibilities of resistance and rebuilding, and creatively addressed the vexed question of literature's relation to politics and ethics. Writing South Africa offers a window on the literary activity of this extraordinary period that conveys its range (going well beyond a handful of world-renowned names) and its significance for anyone interested in the impact of decolonisation and democratisation on the cultural sphere. It brings together for the first time discussions by some of the most distinguished South African novelists, poets, and dramatists, with those of leading commentators based in South Africa, Britain and North America.