Peter France - Böcker

Why biography? Lives of writers, thinkers and artists, while unfailingly popular with readers, raise all kinds of theoretical problems. This volume explores the different faces and functions of the genre in a range of European settings from antiquity to the present.

Why biography? This collection of essays on the problems and functions of biography, and particularly the biography of writers, thinkers and artists, investigates a subject of enduring importance for those interested in culture and society. In the last century, it has been a controversial subject, as old models of biographical writing were attacked and superseded, while critics and theorists questioned the once self-evident value of the biography of writers. Yet the genre continues to attract notable authors and is unfailingly popular with readers.The present volume, while containing essays by practising biographers, is intended primarily as a stimulus to critical thinking. It focuses on the diverse functions assumed by life-writing in different European countries at different periods, challenging both the notion of a genre with constant characteristics and aims and the view of modern biography as the happy culmination of centuries of progress.

Translation has been a crucial process in world culture over the past two millennia and more. In the English-speaking cultures many of the most important texts are translations, from Homer to Beckett, the Bible to Freud. Although recent years have seen a boom in translation studies, there has been no comprehensive yet convenient guide to this essential element of literature in English. Written by eminent scholars from many countries, the Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation meets this need and will be essential reading for all students of English and comparative literature. It highlights the place of translation in our culture, encouraging awareness of the issues raised, making the translator more visible. Concentrating on major writers and works, it covers translations out of many languages, from Greek to Korean, from Swahili to Russian. For some works (e.g. Virgil's Aeneid) which have been much translated, the discussion is historical and critical, showing how translation has evolved over the centuries and bringing out the differences between versions. Elsewhere, with less familiar literatures, the Guide examines the extent to which translation has done justice to the range of work available. The Guide is divided into two parts. Part I contains substantial essays on theoretical questions, a pioneering outline of the history of translation into English, and discussions of the problems raised by specific types of text (e.g. poetry, oral literature). The second, much longer, part consists of entries grouped by language of origin; some are devoted to individual texts (e.g. the Thousand and One Nights) or writers (e.g. Ibsen, Proust), but the majority offer a critical overview of a genre (e.g. Chinese poetry, Spanish Golden Age drama) or of a national literature (e.g. Hungarian, Scottish Gaelic). There is a selective bibliography for each entry and an index of authors and translators.

The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French is far more than a simple revision of the original Oxford Companion to French Literature, published in 1959, and described by The Listener as the `standard work of reference for English-speaking enquirers into French literature'. As the change in title implies, this completely new work presents an authoritative guide not only to ten centuries of literature produced in the territory now called France, but also to the rich literary output of other French-speaking countries around the world.The scope of the Companion is deliberately open and inclusive, challenging and extending the traditional canon. Literature is understood in a broad sense, ranging from strip cartoon and pamphlet to tragedy and epic, and particular attention is devoted to francophone writing from outside France. Written by an international team of specialists, entries cover individual authors and works - over 3,000 of them - from the troubadours to Césaire, and from La Princesse de Clèves to La Vie mode d'emploi. Each is discussed in detail within their historical, cultural, and intellectual context.Among the new features of the Companion are the substantial essay-entries, reflecting up-to-date scholarship and theoretical debates on topics such as:- literary movements and genres- historical subjects such as chivalry, or Occupation and Resistance in wartime France- movements of thought from Scholasticism to feminism- linguistic topics- the sciences- the arts and media, including opera, cinema, and pressAs a divertissement for readers, an entry on `Quotations' lists 100 well-known quotations from the canon of French literature.Adventurous and wide-ranging, The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French will be an indispensable and hugely enjoyable reference work for all scholars, students and general readers.

In the one hundred and ten years covered by volume four of The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English, what characterized translation was above all the move to encompass what Goethe called 'world literature'. This occurred, paradoxically, at a time when English literature is often seen as increasingly self-sufficient. In Europe, the culture of Germany was a new source of inspiration, as were the medieval literatures and the popular ballads of many lands, from Spain to Serbia. From the mid-century, the other literatures of the North, both ancient and modern, were extensively translated, and the last third of the century saw the beginning of the Russian vogue. Meanwhile, as the British presence in the East was consolidated, translation helped readers to take possession of 'exotic' non-European cultures, from Persian and Arabic to Sanskrit and Chinese. The thirty-five contributors bring an enormous range of expertise to the exploration of these new developments and of the fascinating debates which reopened old questions about the translator's task, as the new literalism, whether scholarly or experimental, vied with established modes of translation. The complex story unfolds in Britain and its empire, but also in the United States, involving not just translators, publishers, and readers, but also institutions such as the universities and the periodical press. Nineteenth-century English literature emerges as more open to the foreign than has been recognized before, with far-reaching effects on its orientation.

Translation has been a crucial process in world culture over the past two millennia and more. In the English-speaking cultures many of the most important texts are translations, from Homer to Beckett, the Bible to Freud. Although recent years have seen a boom in translation studies, there has been no comprehensive yet convenient guide to this essential element of literature in English.Written by eminent scholars from many countries, the Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation meets this need and will be essential reading for all students of English and comparative literature. It highlights the place of translation in our culture, encouraging awareness of the issues raised, making the translator more 'visible'. Concentrating on major writers and works, it covers translations out of many languages, from Greek to Korean, from Swahili to Russian. For some works (e.g. Virgil's Aeneid) which have been much translated, the discussion is historical and critical, showing how translation has evolved over the centuries and bringing out the differences between versions. Elsewhere, with less familiar literatures, the Guide examines the extent to which translation has done justice to the range of work available.The Guide is divided into two parts. Part I contains substantial essays on theoretical questions, a pioneering outline of the history of translation into English, and discussions of the problems raised by specific types of text (e.g. poetry, oral literature). The second, much longer, part consists of entries grouped by language of origin; some are devoted to individual texts (e.g. the Thousand and One Nights) or writers (e.g. Ibsen, Proust), but the majority offer a critical overview of a genre (e.g. Chinese poetry, Spanish Golden Age drama) or of a national literature (e.g. Hungarian, Scottish Gaelic). There is a selective bibliography for each entry and an index of authors and translators.

This is a 1992 study of writing of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mainly in France, but also in Britain and Russia. Its focus is on the establishing and questioning of rational, 'civilized' norms of 'politeness', which in the ancien régime meant not just polite manners, but a certain ideal of society and culture. Within this general context, a series of familiar oppositions, between polite and rude, tame and wild, urban(e) and rustic, élite and popular, adult and child, reason and unreason, gives the initial impetus to enquiries which often show how these opposites interpenetrate, how hierarchies are reversed, and how compromises are sought. Polite society, like polite literature, needs and desires its opposite. The ideal is often the meeting of garden and wilderness, where the savage encounters the civilized and gifts are exchanged. Professor France points to the centrality, but also the vulnerability, in classical culture, of the ideal of 'politeness', and his discussion embraces revolutionary eloquence and enlightened primitivism, the value of hyperbole, and the essay as a form of polite sociability.

This new textbook series is ambitious in scope. It will provide concise and lucid introductions to major works of world literature from classical antiquity to the twentieth century. It is not confined to any single literary tradition or genre, and will cumulatively form a substantial library of textbooks on some of the most important and widely read literary masterpieces. Each book is devoted to a single work and provides a close reading of that text, as well as a full account of its historical, cultural, and intellectual background, a discussion of its influence, and a guide to further reading. The contributors to the series give full consideration to the linguistic issues raised by each text, and, within the overall framework of the series, are given complete freedom in the choice of their critical method. Where the text is written in a language other than English, full account is taken of readers studying the text in English translation. While critical jargon is avoided, important technical terminology is fully explained and thus this series will be genuinely accessible to students at all levels and to general readers.

This is a 1992 study of writing of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mainly in France, but also in Britain and Russia. Its focus is on the establishing and questioning of rational, 'civilized' norms of 'politeness', which in the ancien régime meant not just polite manners, but a certain ideal of society and culture. Within this general context, a series of familiar oppositions, between polite and rude, tame and wild, urban(e) and rustic, élite and popular, adult and child, reason and unreason, gives the initial impetus to enquiries which often show how these opposites interpenetrate, how hierarchies are reversed, and how compromises are sought. Polite society, like polite literature, needs and desires its opposite. The ideal is often the meeting of garden and wilderness, where the savage encounters the civilized and gifts are exchanged. Professor France points to the centrality, but also the vulnerability, in classical culture, of the ideal of 'politeness', and his discussion embraces revolutionary eloquence and enlightened primitivism, the value of hyperbole, and the essay as a form of polite sociability.

A remarkable poetic account of a man and his daughter. Though relatively unpublished in the Soviet Union until the late 1980s, Gennady Aygi's work has been translated into some twenty languages, and has received major acclaim through many parts of the world. Child-and-Rose is a unique collection of poems and prose chosen and arranged by the author and translator. Taking as its central themes childhood, sleep, and silence in relation to poetic creation, the book is divided into five sections"Veronica's Book," "Sleep-and-Poetry," "Before and After the Book," "Silvia's World," and "Poetry-as-Silence"all written between 1972 and 2002. In this collection, each poem is a carefully crafted space of language that surfaces from the heart of a poetic consciousness at "the limits of intelligibility," as the translator notes. Images of Aygi's Chuvash homelandbirches, oaks, snow, roses, fieldsmix with a disrupted syntax, astonishing turns, gaps, and suspensions that all speak to a quiet stillness of being.

Mikhail Lermontov (1814–41) is best known in the West today as the author of the novel A Hero of Our Time. But at the time of his death, aged only 26, he was widely regarded as Russia’s greatest living poet. He achieved almost instant fame in 1837 with ‘On the Death of a Poet’, his tribute to Pushkin – whose death in a duel foreshadowed Lermontov’s own. Over the course of the next four years he went on to write many short poems, both lyric and satirical, and two long verse narratives. He was particularly known for his depictions of the Caucasus, where he was exiled for a time, taking part in battles such as the one described in his poem ‘Valerik’.Lermontov traced his ancestry to Scotland, and this book offers a Scottish perspective on the Russian poet. Most of the translators are Scottish or have Scottish connections, and some of the poems are translated into Scots. As Peter France writes in his introduction, this bicentennial volume aims to bring Lermontov’s poems to a new readership by enabling them to live again’ in English and in Scots.