William Ray – författare

This book is both a guide to, and interpretation of, the course of modern literary theory. Exploring the various theories of reading which have informed post-war literary criticism, it shows that for all the fervour of current debate about new movements in criticism, all these different approaches share at root a common notion of literary meaning.

A comprehensive , ambitious, and demanding critique of eighteenth-century English and French fiction, Story and History rereads the major works of the period as components in a systematic exploration of how the ordering of experience by individuals might relate to larger orders of authority. Interpreting the evolving thematic pattern of fiction in both countries as a plot in its own right, William Ray argues that the novel's rise in the eighteenth century coincided with a growing conviction - which the genre both reflected and fostered - that selfhood, social identity, public authority, and ultimately even historical truth and cultural values, all hinge on narrative representation. From the early novels of individualism, which emphasize the relating of personal experience as a means of altering social hierarchies and securing privileges for the exceptional individual, to the later metanovels, whose complex dialectical models of history both invite and exclude manipulation of the shared record, Story and History traces not only the relationship of individual story to collective history, but also finction's evolving grasp of its own cultural authority. Presented as an evolving story whose episodes are furnished by the successive works in treats, the sutdy seeks its model of the eighteenth century's understanding of narration and social reality within the stories of narrative manipulation contained in the most influential fiction of the period. Novels examined include: La Princesse de Cleves, Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, Poxana, La Vie de Martanne, Le paysan parvenu, Manon Lescout, Pamela, Clarissa, Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise, Tristam Shandy, Jacques le fataliste, and Les Liaisons dangereuses.

This book proposes an analysis of the underlying 'logic' of culture, drawing on a wide range of material not previously examined in works of this kind.

Barbary pirates in Africa targeted sailors for centuries, often taking slaves and demanding ransom in exchange. First published in 1808, Horrors of Slavery is the tale of one such sailor, captured during the United States's first military encounter with the Islamic world, the Tripolitan War. William Ray, along with three hundred crewmates, spent nineteen months in captivity after his ship, the Philadelphia, ran aground in the harbor of Tripoli. Imprisoned, Ray witnessed-and chronicled-many of the key moments of the military engagement. In addition to offering a compelling history of a little-known war, this book presents the valuable perspective of an ordinary seaman who was as concerned with the injustices of the U.S. Navy as he was with Barbary pirates.Hester Blum's introduction situates Horrors of Slavery in its literary, historical, and political contexts, bringing to light a crucial episode in the early history of our country's relations with Islamic states.A volume in the Subterranean Lives series, edited by Bradford Verter