J. A. Bryant – författare

First published in 1985, information is presented and summarised in this account of how plant cells divide. The chapters give information on control points in the cell cycle, on DNA replication and on the stages of cell and chloroplast division. The specialist authors together provide a general overview which will interest and inform all advanced students of the subject.

Authors discussed include: Wendell Berry, Erskine Caldwell, Truman Capote, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Shelby Foote, Zora Neal Hurston, Bobbie Ann Mason, Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O'Connor, William Styron, Anne Tyler, Alice Walker, Robert Penn Warren, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Thomas Wolfe, Richard Wright, and many more.By World War II, the Southern Renaissance had established itself as one of the most significant literary events of the century, and today much of the best American fiction is southern fiction. Though the flowering of realistic and local-color writing during the first two decades of the century was a sign of things to come, the period between the two world wars was the crucial one for the South's literary development: a literary revival in Richmond came to fruition; at Vanderbilt University a group of young men produced The Fugitive, a remarkable, controversial magazine that published some of the century's best verse in its brief run; and the publication and widespread recognition of Faulkner (among others) inaugurated the great flood of southern writing that was to follow in novels, short stories, poetry, and plays.With more than forty years of experience writing and reading about the subject, and friendships with many of the figures discussed, J. A. Bryant is uniquely qualified to provide the first comprehensive account of southern American literature since 1900. Bryant pays attention to both the cultural and the historical context of the works and authors discussed, and presents the information in an enjoyable, accessible style. No lover of great American literature can afford to be without this book.

Scholars have already demonstrated that Shakespeare 's language abounds in Biblical allusions and references, but Mr. Bryant now undertakes to show us how such details may bear on the full meaning of the plays. Seeking to interpret Shakespeare's plays as Christian poetry, Mr. Bryant has developed in this significant work a new critical approach which may have far-reaching consequences for future Shakespearean scholarship.In an introductory essay the author shows that the typological view of Scripture was a familiar one to the Christians of Shakespeare 's time; he suggests that for Shakespeare, as for many of his contemporaries, the Bible had only one subject -- Christ -- to which everything in both Testaments in some way referred. This interpretation of Scripture, Mr. Bryant believes, had an appreciable effect on Shakespeare's handling of many of the traditional stories on which he based his plays.The author then demonstrates, in twelve essays, how typological patterns may be traced in the plays and how Biblical allusions suggest and strengthen these analogies. In both Richard II and Hamlet, Mr. Bryant finds references to the story of Cain and Abel which give a new focus to his reading of these plays. Passages from the Gospels bear upon his interpretations of Troilus and Cressida and Measure for Measure, and the epistles of St. Paul upon his readings of The Merchant of Venice and the two parts of Henry IV. Mr. Bryant then attacks the popular idea that tragedy is incompatible with Christian doctrine; his essay defining Christian tragedy is illustrated in chapters on Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Othello. The concluding essays deal with Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale as tragicomedies given depth by their Christian materials.Mr. Bryant's fresh and challenging interpretations of these representative tragedies, histories, and comedies will not meet with universal assent, but they are certain to provoke the interest of both scholarly and lay readers. The increasing number of students who wish to trace the relationships between secular literature and Christian thought will find in this pioneer work a new insight into the nature of Christian poetry.