Casebooks in Criticism – serie

With the continued expansion of the literary canon, multicultural works of modern literary fiction and autobiography have assumed an increasing importance for students and scholars of American literature. This exciting new series assembles key documents and criticism concerning these works that have so recently become central components of the American literature curriculum. Each casebook will reprint documents relating to the work's historical context and reception, present the best in critical essays, and when possible, feature an interview of the author. The series will provide, for the first time, an accessible forum in which readers can come to a fuller understanding of these contemporary masterpieces and the unique aspects of American ethnic, racial, or cultural experience that they so ably portray.This casebook to Morrison's classic novel presents seven essays that represent the best in contemporary criticism of the book. In addition, the book includes a poem and an abolitionist's tra published after a slave named Margaret Garner killed her child to save her from slavery--the very incident Morrison fictionalizes in Beloved.

With the continued expansion of the literary canon, multicultural works of modern literary fiction and autobiography have assumed an increasing importance for students and scholars of American literature. This exciting new series assembles key documents and criticism concerning these works that have so recently become central components of the American literature curriculum. Each casebook will reprint documents relating to the work's historical context and reception, present the best in critical essays, and when possible, feature an interview of the author. The series will provide, for the first time, an accessible forum in which readers can come to a fuller understanding of these contemporary masterpieces and the unique aspects of American ethnic, racial, or cultural experience that they so ably portray.This casebook to Morrison's classic novel presents seven essays that represent the best in contemporary criticism of the book. In addition, the book includes a poem and an abolitionist's tract published after a slave named Margaret Garner killed her child to save her from slavery--the very incident Morrison fictionalizes in Beloved.

Perhaps more than any other single text, Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings helped to establish the audience and the "mainstream" status of the renaissance in black women's writing and thus to pave the way for the future success of Alice Walker, Terry McMillan, Sherley Anne Williams and perhaps even Toni Morrison. The Casebook promises to be a useful volume that will see wide use in the area where Angelou's first autobiography shows a continuing and flourishing readership, especially American autobiography, African American literature, Women's Studies/Gender Studies and Cross-Cultural Studies. Along with Braxton's introduction and the Claudia Tate interview, the selected essays provide a range of critical approaches to the text.

With the continued expansion of the literary canon, multicultural works of modern literary fiction and autobiography have assumed an increasing importance for students and scholars of American literature. This exciting new series assembles key documents and criticism concerning these works that have so recently become central components of the American literature curriculum. Each casebook will reprint documents relating to the work's historical context and reception, present the best in critical essays, and when possible, feature an interview of the author. The series will provide, for the first time, an accessible forum in which readers can come to a fuller understanding of these contemporary masterpieces and the unique aspects of American ethnic, racial, or cultural experience that they so ably portray. Perhaps more than any other single text, Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings helped to establish the "mainstream" status of the renaissance in black women's writing. This casebook presents a variety of critical approaches to this classic autobiography, along with an exclusive interview with Angelou conducted specially for this volume and a unique drawing of her childhood surroundings in Stamps, Arkansas, drawn by Angelou herself.

Noted Asian Americanist Sau-ling C. Wong presents a thought-provoking overview of critical issues surrounding Kingston's contemporary classic, such as reception by various interpretive communities, canon formation, cultural authenticity, fictionality in autobiography, and feminist and poststructuralist subjectivity. Eight critical essays are supplemented by headnotes, an interview, and an annotated bibliography.

With the continued expansion of the literary canon, multicultural works of modern literary fiction and autobiography have assumed an increasing importance for students and scholars of American literature. This exciting new series assembles key documents and criticism concerning these works that have so recently become central components of the American literature curriculum. Each casebook will reprint documents relating to the work's historical context and reception, present the best in critical essays, and when possible, feature an interview of the author. The series will provide, for the first time, an accessible forum in which readers can come to a fuller understanding of these contemporary masterpieces and the unique aspects of American ethnic, racial, or cultural experience that they so ably portray.This casebook presents a thought-provoking overview of critical debates surrounding The Woman Warrior, perhaps the best-known Asian American literary work. The essays deal with such issues as the reception by various interpretive communities, canon formation, cultural authenticity, fictionality in autobiography, and feminist and poststructuralist subjectivity. The eight essays are supplemented an interview with the author and a bibliography.

The rediscovery of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, first published in 1937 but subsequently out of print for decades, marks one of the most dramatic chapters in African-American literature and Women's Studies. Its popularity owes much to the lyricism of the prose, the pitch-perfect rendition of black vernacular English, and the memorable characters - most notably, Janie Crawford. Collecting the most widely cited and influential essays published on Hurston's classic novel over the last quarter century , this Casebook presents contesting viewpoints by Hazel Carby, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Barbara Johnson, Carla Kaplan, Daphne Lamothe, Mary Helen Washington, and Sherley Anne Williams. The volume also includes a statement Hurston submitted to a reference book on twentieth-century authors in 1942. As it records the major debates the novel has sparked on issues of language and identity, feminism and racial politics, A Casebook charts new directions for future critics and affirms the classic status of the novel.

The rediscovery of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, first published in 1937 but subsequently out of print for decades, marks one of the most dramatic chapters in African-American literature and Women's Studies. Its popularity owes much to the lyricism of the prose, the pitch-perfect rendition of black vernacular English, and the memorable characters - most notably, Janie Crawford. Collecting the most widely cited and influential essays published on Hurston's classic novel over the last quarter century , this Casebook presents contesting viewpoints by Hazel Carby, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Barbara Johnson, Carla Kaplan, Daphne Lamothe, Mary Helen Washington, and Sherley Anne Williams. The volume also includes a statement Hurston submitted to a reference book on twentieth-century authors in 1942. As it records the major debates the novel has sparked on issues of language and identity, feminism and racial politics, A Casebook charts new directions for future critics and affirms the classic status of the novel.

Louise Erdrich's first novel, Love Medicine, came out in 1984 to instant national acclaim, winning a National Book Circle Critics Award and launching a tetralogy which it would take Erdrich ten years to complete. In its centrality to Native American literary tradition, Love Medicine is an uncompromising and irresistible portrait of a community till then too often portrayed in flat or comic terms. Hertha Wong has established herself as the leading commentator on Erdrich.

Along with Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine , Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony is one of the two most widely taught and studied Native American literature texts today. In Ceremony Silko recounts a young man's search for consolation in his tribe's history and traditions, and his resulting voyage of self-discovery and discovery of the world. This casebook includes a variety of theoretical approaches and provides readers with crucial information, especially on Native American beliefs, that will enhance their understanding and appreciation of this contemporary classic. This collection also includes two interviews with Leslie Marmon Silko in which she explains the importance of oral tradition and storytelling, along with the autobiographical basis of the novel.

Along with Louise Erdich's Love Medicine, Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony is one of the two most widely taught and studied Native American literature texts today. In Ceremony, Silko recounts a young man's search for consolation in his tribes history and traditions, and his resulting voyage of self-discovery and dicovery of the world. This casebook includes a variety of theoretical approaches and provides readers with crucial information, especially on Native American beliefs, that will enhance their understanding and appreciation of this contemporary classic. This collection also includes two interviews with Leslie Marmon Silko in which she explains the importance of oral tradtion and storytelling, along with the autobiographical basis of the novel.

Not only is One Hundred Years of Solitude regularly taught across disciplines in colleges and universities, it is also one of the few Latin American classics that has become recognizable to a more general public beyond academia. This collection includes ten articles by different authors that offer in-depth readings of the novel. Among the topics examined are myth, magic, women, Western Imperialism, and the Media. The book also includes the first English translation of an early eight-page appreciation by Carlos Fuentes, as well as a 1982 interview with the author. This book will provide a valuable tool for scholars, teachers, and students, as well as general readers in search of a guide to this complex literary masterpiece.

Ralph Ellisons' Invisible Man: A Casebook offers students and scholars a rich variety of interpretations from which to fashion their own views of the novels and the man who created it. Both Ellison's comments, a number of which appear in print here for the first time, and those of ten distignuished scholars of American and African-American literature take the position that there can be no last word on Invisible Man. Different as they are, the essays share a respect for the novel's fluidity and for every reader's encounter with its narrator, story, and meanings.

Still the most popular book of Hemingway's to teach, The Sun Also Rises captures the quintessential romance of the expatriate Americans and Britains in Paris after World War I. As the international vacationers move from Paris to Pamplona for the bullfight festival, the characters wend their various narratives through the impressionistic colours of modern European life. The text provides a way for discussions of war, sexuality, personal angst, and national identity to be linked inextricably with the stylistic traits of modern writing. Both in theme and style, this novel has become synonymous with modernism and is often used as either a starting point for courses in modernism or as a representative modernist novel in broader survey courses. This collection of essays presents ideas published throughout the last half of the twentieth century, touching on topics of sexuality, religion, alcoholism, gender, Spanish culture and economics - as well as humour. Five of the essays have been published since 1995, and they represent the most current thinking about the novel. The volume also includes an interview with Hemingway conducted by George Plimpton.

Still the most popular book of Hemingway's to teach, The Sun Also Rises captures the quintessential romance of the expatriate Americans and Britains in Paris after World War I. As the international vacationers move from Paris to Pamplona for the bullfight festival, the characters wend their various narratives through the impressionistic colours of modern European life. The text provides a way for discussions of war, sexuality, personal angst, and national identity to be linked inextricably with the stylistic traits of modern writing. Both in theme and style, this novel has become synonymous with modernism and is often used as either a starting point for courses in modernism or as a representative modernist novel in broader survey courses. This collection of essays presents ideas published throughout the last half of the twentieth century, touching on topics of sexuality, religion, alcoholism, gender, Spanish culture and economics - as well as humour. Five of the essays have been published since 1995, and they present the most current thinking about the novel. The volume also includes an interview with Hemingway conducted by George Plimpton.

The essays in this volume represent the major currents in critical thinking about Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison's widely acclaimed examination of the individual quest for self-knowledge in the context of the African-American experience. This collection offers a broad overview of the scholarship that has emerged in the decades since the 1977 publication of Morrison's third novel. These essays provide a map of the primary themes of Song of Solomon, covering subjects such as self-identity, the rituals of manhood and reading, and the importance of naming, and also explore the novel's incorporation of African myth and African-American folklore. The casebook opens with 'People Who Could Fly,' the African folktale from which Song of Solomon draws important aspects of its plot and major theme, and closes with an interview with Toni Morrison about her life and work as a novelist.

South African writer Nadine Gordimer won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. Her seventh novel, Burger's Daughter, focuses upon the daughter of a white, communist Afrikaner hero. Based partly on fact, successively banned and unbanned by the South African authorities, the novel has also become something of a test case for feminist critics of Gordimer's writing. This casebook includes an interview with and an essay by Nadine Gordimer on the novel, classic and recent critical essays, an introduction discussing biographical and historical contexts and the literary reception, and a bibliography.

Chinua Achebe is Africa's most prominent writer, and Things Fall Apart (1958) is the most renowned and widely-read African novel in the global literary canon. Translated into close to sixty languages, Things Fall Apart is the novel that inaugurated the long and continuing tradition of postcolonial inquiry into the problematic relations between the West and the countries of the Third World that were once European colonies. This collection explores the artistic, multicultural, and global significance of Things Fall Apart from a variety of critical perspectives. The essays selected for this casebook represent the most important and well-established critical work written on the novel to date. This volume also contains an editor's introduction, an interview with Chinua Achebe, and suggestions for further reading.

Chinua Achebe is Africa's most prominent writer, and Things Fall Apart (1958) is the most renowned and widely-read African novel in the global literary canon. Translated into close to sixty languages, Things Fall Apart is the novel that inaugurated the long and continuing tradition of postcolonial inquiry into the problematic relations between the West and the countries of the Third World that were once European colonies. This collection explores the artistic, multicultural, and global significance of Things Fall Apart from a variety of critical perspectives. The essays selected for this casebook represent the most important and well-established critical work written on the novel to date. This volume also contains an editor's introduction, an interview with Chinua Achebe, and suggestions for further reading.

Midway through the last century, Lolita burst on the literary scene - a Russian exile's extraordinary gift to American letters and the new world. The scandal provoked by the novel's subject - the sexual passion of a middle-aged European for a twelve-year-old American girl - was quickly upstaged by the critical attention and acclaim it received from readers, scholars, and critics around the world. The contents of this volume comprises an interview with the author as well as nine critical essays that follow a progression focusing first on textual and thematic features and then proceeding to broader issues and cultural implications, including the novel's relations to other work of literature and art and the movies adapted from it.

James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: A Casebook offers a comprehensive introduction to a landmark in modern fiction. The essays collected here will help first-time readers, teachers, and advanced scholars gain new insight into Joyce's semi-autobiographical story of an Irish boy's slow and difficult discovery of his artistic vocation. The epitome of the modernist Bildungsroman, or novel of education, Joyce's novel was controversial from the moment of its publication in 1916, and Mark Wollaeger's introduction provides an overview of the composition and early reception of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as well as a survey of some of the recurrent issues debated by literary critics. The selection of the essays is designed to address major critical issues, provide detailed readings of important passages, and trace the evolution of critical responses to the novel. Essays by Hugh Kenner and Patrick Parrinder offer both indispensable overviews of the entire novel-its themes, structure, and idiom-and close attention to specific interpretive cruxes. In addition to classic responses to Portrait, such as Wayne Booth's critique of authorial "distance," Fritz Senn's unpacking of the epigraph, and Michael Levenson's reading of the diary, the collection includes a newly revised and expanded version of Maud Ellmann's groundbreaking 1982 poststructuralist essay, "Polytropic Man," and essays by Hélène Cixous, Joseph Valente, Vicki Mahaffey, Emer Nolan, Marian Eide, Marjorie Howes, and Mark Wollaeger. Some essays are oriented toward literary history, genre, biography or formalism; others draw on recent developments in queer theory and postcolonial studies; others on the turn towards history exemplified in Irish studies. All are very readable and pay close attention to intricacies of Joyce's text. Together the essays bring into focus the wide range of questions that have kept A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man fresh for the new millennium.

Absalom, Absalom! has long been seen as one of William Faulkner's supreme creations, as well as one of the leading American novels of the twentieth century. In this collection Fred Hobson has brought together eight of the most stimulating essays on Absalom, essays written over a thirty-year span which approach the novel both formally and historically. Here are critical responses by Cleanth Brooks, John Irwin, Thadious Davis, and Eric Sundquist, as well as four essays published in the last decade. The casebook concludes with Faulkner's own remarks on the novel, delivered in a discussion with students at the University of Virginia. What emerges from all the selections is a rich and suggestive treatment of a work which Faulkner himself called "the best novel yet written by an American" and a less biased critic has called "the greatest American novel of the century... joining Moby-Dick and Huckleberry Finn at the pinnacle of American fiction."

Edith Wharton is recognized as one of the twentieth century's most important American writers. The House of Mirth not only initiated three decades of Wharton's popular and critical acclaim, it helped move women's literature into a new place of achievement and prominence. The House of Mirth is perhaps Wharton's best-known and most frequently read novel, and scholars and teachers consider it an essential introduction to Wharton and her work. Moreover, the novel lends itself to a variety of topics of inquiry and critical approaches of interest to readers at various levels. This casebook collects critical essays addressing a broad spectrum of topics and utilizing a range of critical and theoretical approaches. It also includes Wharton's introduction to the 1936 edition of the novel and her discussion of the composition of the novel from her autobiography.

This casebook gathers together the most important critical responses to Richard Wright's autobiography. It includes a 1945 interview with Richard Wright, contemporary reviews of Black Boy written by W.E.B. Du Bois, Lionel Trilling, Mary McCarthy, and Ralph Ellison, and eight critical essays. These essays address a range of topics including the circumstances of the book's original publication in 1945; the relationship between the novel and Wright's actual biography; the African-American autobiographical tradition; the influences of various writers and literary movements on Black Boy; and the impact of African-American vernacular and oral performance on Wright's autobiography.

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.

Citizen Kane is arguable the most admired and significant film since the advent of talking pictures. To study it even briefly is to learn a great deal about American history, motion-picture style, and the literary aspects of motion-picture scripts. This volume will represent the essential writings on Kane. It gives the reader a lively set of critical interpretations, together with the necessary production information, historical background, and technical understanding to comprehend the film's larger cultural significance.

Citizen Kane is arguably the most admired and significant film since the advent of talking pictures. No other film is quite so interesting from both artistic and political points of view. To study it even briefly is to learn a great deal about American history, motion-picture style, and the literary aspects of motion-picture scripts. Rather than a sterile display of critical methodologies, James Naremore has gathered a set of essays that represent the essential writings on the film. It gives the reader a lively set of critical interpretations, together with the necessary production information, historical background, and technical understanding to comprehend the film's larger cultural significance. Selections range from the anecdotal -- Peter Bogdanovich's interview with Orson Welles -- to the critical, with discussions on the scripts and sound track, and a discussion of what accounts for the film's enduring popularity. Contributors include James Naremore, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Robert L. Carringer, François Thomas, Michael Denning, Laura Mulvey, Peter Wollen, and Paul Arthur.

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad's fictional account of a journey up the Congo river in 1890, raises important questions about colonialism and narrative theory. This casebook contains materials relevant to a deeper understanding of the origins and reception of this controversial text, including Conrad's own story 'An Outpost of Progress', together with a little-known memoir by one of Conrad's oldest English friends, a brief history of the Congo Free State by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and a parody of Conrad by Max Beerbohm. A wide range of theoretical approaches are also represented, examining Conrad's text in terms of cultural, historical, textual, stylistic, narratological, post-colonial, feminist, and reader-response criticism. The volume concludes with an interview in which Conrad compares his adventures on the Congo with Mark Twain's experiences as a Mississippi pilot.