Ronald Speirs – författare

The Missing Person, The Trial and The Castle are known throughout the world as great works of modern fiction, admired for the originality of their technique, subtlety of language and multiple suggestiveness. The present study takes power in its social, psychological and moral complexity and follows this thematic thread through the labyrinth of imagery and motif in each novel. The detailed analyses of the novel are preceded by an account of Kafka's life and a survey of critical approaches to his work.

Bertolt Brecht, one of the most influential European playwrights of the twentieth century, was also a poet of distinction. Brecht's Poetry of Political Exile is the first comprehensive study devoted to his most important collection of political poetry, the Svendborg Poems. In these essays, a strong team of contributors take the poems as the focal point for a much wider study of politics and poetry under totalitarianism. They analyse Brecht's work critically and historically, discussing it in relation to questions of poetics, political commitment, exile, propaganda, rhetoric, and the scope and limitations of political poetry. Links are also drawn with the work of German, Soviet and English poets of the period, and with later German poets. This volume sheds light on Brecht's political investment in and aesthetic commitment to political poetry, and will complement the plentiful scholarship focusing on his drama.

The Birth of Tragedy is one of the seminal philosophical works of the modern period. Nietzsche's discussion of the nature of culture, of the conditions under which it can flourish and of those under which it will decline, his analysis of the sources of discontent with the modern world, his criticism of rationalism and of traditional morality, his aesthetic theories and his conception of the 'Dionysiac' have had a profound influence on the philosophy, literature, music, and politics of the twentieth century. This edition presents a new translation by Ronald Speirs and an introduction by Raymond Geuss that sets the work in its historical and philosophical context. The volume also includes two essays on related topics that Nietzsche wrote during the same period, and that throw further light on the themes treated in the main text.

The Birth of Tragedy is one of the seminal philosophical works of the modern period. Nietzsche's discussion of the nature of culture, of the conditions under which it can flourish and of those under which it will decline, his analysis of the sources of discontent with the modern world, his criticism of rationalism and of traditional morality, his aesthetic theories and his conception of the 'Dionysiac' have had a profound influence on the philosophy, literature, music, and politics of the twentieth century. This edition presents a new translation by Ronald Speirs and an introduction by Raymond Geuss that sets the work in its historical and philosophical context. The volume also includes two essays on related topics that Nietzsche wrote during the same period, and that throw further light on the themes treated in the main text.

Bertolt Brecht, one of the most influential European playwrights of the twentieth century, was also a poet of distinction. Brecht's Poetry of Political Exile is the first comprehensive study devoted to his most important collection of political poetry, the Svendborg Poems. In these essays, a strong team of contributors take the poems as the focal point for a much wider study of politics and poetry under totalitarianism. They analyse Brecht's work critically and historically, discussing it in relation to questions of poetics, political commitment, exile, propaganda, rhetoric, and the scope and limitations of political poetry. Links are also drawn with the work of German, Soviet and English poets of the period, and with later German poets. This volume sheds light on Brecht's political investment in and aesthetic commitment to political poetry, and will complement the plentiful scholarship focusing on his drama.