Edinburgh Critical Guides to Literature – serie

An important critical study of Canadian literature, placing internationally successful anglophone Canadian authors in the context of their national literary history.While the focus of the book is on twentieth-century and contemporary writing, it also charts the historical development of Canadian literature and discusses important eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors. The chapters focus on four central topics in Canadian culture: Ethnicity, Race, Colonisation; Wildernesses, Cities, Regions; Desire; and Histories and Stories. Each chapter combines case studies of five key texts with a broad discussion of concepts and approaches, including postcolonial and postmodern reading strategies and theories of space, place and desire. Authors chosen for close analysis include Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Alice Munro, Leonard Cohen, Thomas King and Carol Shields.Key Features* The first critical guide to Canadian literature in English* Authors selected on the basis of their popularity on undergraduate courses* Combines historical and thematic approaches to Canadian writing* Links close reading of key texts with theoretical approaches to Canadian literature* Discusses in detail Obasan by Joy Kogawa, Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery, The Republic of Love by Carol Shields, 'Wilderness Tips' and The Journals of Susanna Moodie by Margaret Atwood, Wild Geese by Martha Ostenso, Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, The Diviners by Margaret Laurence and In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje

This critical study of Asian American literature discusses work by internationally successful writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Chang-rae Lee, Bharati Mukherjee, Amy Tan and others in their historical, cultural and critical contexts. The focus of this book is on contemporary writing, from the 1970s onwards, although it also traces over a hundred years of Asian American literary production in prose, poetry, drama and criticism. The main body of the book comprises five periodized chapters that highlight important events in a nation-state that has historically rendered Asian Americans invisible. Of particular importance to the writers selected for case studies are questions of racial identity, cultural history and literary value with respect to dominant American ideologies.Key features* The first readily available introductory guide to Asian American literature* Discusses a representative range of Asian American literature, providing asense of the diversity of the field and of its key themes and modes of writing* Provides close readings of key texts in the form of case studies in their cultural, historical and critical contexts* Encourages reflection on questions of literary value, canonicity and the scopeand purpose of literary studies

This guide examines the production and reception of poetry by a range of women writers - predominantly although not exclusively writing in English - from Sappho through Anne Bradstreet and Emily Bronte to Sylvia Plath, Eavan Boland and Susan Howe.Women's Poetry offers a thoroughgoing thematic study of key texts, poets and issues, analysing commonalities and differences across diverse writers, periods, and forms. The book is alert, throughout, to the diversity of women's poetry. Close readings of selected texts are combined with a discussion of key theories and critical practices, and students are encouraged to think about women's poetry in the light of debates about race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and regional and national identity. The book opens with a chronology followed by a comprehensive Introduction which outlines various approaches to reading women's poetry. Seven chapters follow, and a Conclusion and section of useful resources close the book.Key Features* Wide-ranging and flexible in scope, giving detailed consideration to widely-taught poets, texts, periods and issues* Introduces themes, questions and perspectives applicable to the work of other less familiar writers* Encourages informed discussion of the difficulties of defining a discrete genre of 'women's poetry'* Offers valuable introductory and supplementary guidance for students* Discusses in detail poems by Margaret Cavendish, Anne Bradstreet, Sara Coleridge, Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, Edith Sitwell, Amy Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Ruth Fainlight, Grace Nicholls, Eavan Boland, Kathleen Jamie, Jackie Kay and Carol Ann Duffy.

This guide examines the production and reception of poetry by a range of women writers - predominantly although not exclusively writing in English - from Sappho through Anne Bradstreet and Emily Bronte to Sylvia Plath, Eavan Boland and Susan Howe.Women's Poetry offers a thoroughgoing thematic study of key texts, poets and issues, analysing commonalities and differences across diverse writers, periods, and forms. The book is alert, throughout, to the diversity of women's poetry. Close readings of selected texts are combined with a discussion of key theories and critical practices, and students are encouraged to think about women's poetry in the light of debates about race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and regional and national identity. The book opens with a chronology followed by a comprehensive Introduction which outlines various approaches to reading women's poetry. Seven chapters follow, and a Conclusion and section of useful resources close the book.Key Features* Wide-ranging and flexible in scope, giving detailed consideration to widely-taught poets, texts, periods and issues* Introduces themes, questions and perspectives applicable to the work of other less familiar writers* Encourages informed discussion of the difficulties of defining a discrete genre of 'women's poetry'* Offers valuable introductory and supplementary guidance for students* Discusses in detail poems by Margaret Cavendish, Anne Bradstreet, Sara Coleridge, Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, Edith Sitwell, Amy Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Ruth Fainlight, Grace Nicholls, Eavan Boland, Kathleen Jamie, Jackie Kay and Carol Ann Duffy.

This book helps the reader make sense of the most commonly studied writer in the world. It starts with a brief explanation of how Shakespeare's writings have come down to us as a series of scripts for actors in the early modern theatre industry of London. The main chapters of the book approach the texts through a series of questions: 'what's changed since Shakespeare's time?', 'to what uses has Shakespeare been put?', and 'what value is there in Shakespeare?' These questions go to the heart of why we study Shakespeare at all, which question the book encourages the readers to answer for themselves in relation to their own critical writing.Key Features* A chronology of Shakespeare's career as an actor/dramatist that locates him within the theatre industry of his time* New readings of twelve plays that form a core of the Shakespeare canon: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard 2, Henry 5, Hamlet, Othello, All's Well that Ends Well, The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, The Tempest, and Timon of Athens* Critical analyses organized by genre (comedies, histories, tragedies, and romance) and by four key critical approaches: authorship, performance, identities, and materialism* An extensive resources section, including a glossary of the important critical terms that are often used in debates about Shakespeare

This critical guide introduces major novelists and themes in British fiction from1975 to 2005. It engages with concepts such as postmodernism, feminism,gender and the postcolonial, and examines the place of fiction within broaderdebates in contemporary culture.A comprehensive Introduction provides a historical context for the study ofcontemporary British fiction by detailing significant social, political and culturalevents. This is followed by five chapters organised around the core themes:(1) Narrative Forms, (2) Contemporary Ethnicities, (3) Gender and Sexuality,(4) History, Memory and Writing, and (5) Narratives of Cultural Space.Key Features• Introduces the major themes and trends in British fiction over the last 30 years• Analyses a range of writers and texts including Brick Lane by Monica Ali,London Fields by Martin Amis, The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter,Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby, The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi,Atonement by Ian McEwan, Shame by Salman Rushdie, Downriver by IainSinclair, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit byJeanette Winterson.• Presents a variety of critical perspectives essential for studying contemporaryBritish fiction• Provides essential resources for further reading and research

This book explores the development of contemporary theatre in the United States in its historical, political and theoretical dimensions. It focuses on representative plays and performance texts that experiment with form and content, discussing influential playwrights and performance artists such as Tennessee Williams, Adrienne Kennedy, Sam Shepard, Tony Kushner, Charles Ludlum, Anna Deavere Smith, Karen Finley and Will Power, alongside avant-garde theatre groups.Saddik traces the development of contemporary drama since 1945, and discusses the cross-cultural impact of postwar British and European innovations on American theatre from the 1950s to the present day in order to examine the performance of American identity. She argues that contemporary American theatre is primarily a postmodern drama of inclusion and diversity that destabilizes the notion of fixed identity and questions the nature of reality.Key features* Examines the influence of international figures such as Aristotle, Brecht, Artaud and Boal who are central to theatre as a discipline* Explores realistic and anti-realistic styles of American drama and their political and social implications, along with key critical terms and movements* Places the complexity of contemporary American drama within its political, sexual and ethnic contexts* Includes rare images from La MaMa Archive/Ellen Stewart Private Collection* Discusses in detail Stairs to the Roof and Camino Real by Tennessee Williams, Death of a Salesman and The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Dutchman and The Slave by Amira Baraka, Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy, The Tooth of Crime and True West by Sam Shepherd and American Buffalo by David Mamet as well as a range of other texts and performers.

An incisive study of modern American literature, casting new light on its origins and themes. Exploring canonical American writers such as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner alongside less familiar writers like Djuna Barnes and Susan Glaspell, the guide takes readers though a diverse literary landscape. It considers how the rise of the American metropolis contributed to the growth of American modernism; and also examines the ways in which regional writers responded to an accelerated American modernity. Taking in African American modernism, cultural and geographical exile, as well as developments in modern American drama, the guide introduces readers to current critical trends in modernist studies. Key FeaturesPresents American literary modernism as emerging from a broad intellectual and philosophical landscapeExtends the timeframe, definition and intellectual parameters of American modernismProvides close critical and contextual analysis of more than thirty American writers and key texts including Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Djuna Barnes's Nightwood, and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land

How were the genres of literature changed by new methods of serialization and publishing? How did a widespread culture of performance emerge in the period to shape as well as to be shaped by the novel and poetry? David Amigoni draws on the most recent critical approaches to the novel, Victorian melodrama and poetry to answer these and other questions. The work of Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Carlyle and Mathew Arnold are explored in relation to ideas about fiction, journalism, drama, poetry, the New Woman, gothic, horror and the Victorian sage.Key Features*Detailed readings of key texts provide models of how to read critically*Demonstrates the interaction between genres to help think through modes of artistic experimentation and innovation in the period*Examines Neo-Victorian fiction, a popular genre today*Student resources include electronic and reference sources, further reading and an extensive glossary of key critical terms and historical issues

This guide combines detailed literary history with discussion of contemporary debates about Scottishness. The book considers the rise of Scottish Studies, the development of a national literature, and issues of cultural nationalism. Beginning in the medieval period during a time of nation building, the book goes on to focus on the 'Scots revival' of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before moving on to discuss the literary renaissance of the twentieth century. Debates concerning Celticism and Gaelic take place alongside discussion of key Scottish writers such as William Dunbar, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Thomas Carlyle, Margaret Oliphant, Hugh MacDiarmid, Alasdair Gray, Janice Galloway and Liz Lochhead. The book also considers émigré writers to Scotland; Scottish literature in relation to England, the United States and Ireland; and postcolonialism and other theories that shed fresh light on the current status and future of Scottish literature.Key Features*Identifies the main trends in the emergence and development of Scottish literature, situating them in historical and cultural context*Discusses long-running debates about Scottish language and national identity through detailed readings of authors and texts*Introduces students to a variety of comparative and theoretical approaches which further develop an understanding of Scottish literature*Encourages reflection on questions of Scottish nationalism, cultural politics, canonicity and the rise of Scottish Studies

Introduces students to a wide range of modernist writers and critical debates in modernism studies.Discussing canonical modernist writers such as James Joyce and T. S. Eliot alongside less familiar writers such as Mina Loy and Djuna Barnes, the guide takes students through a wide-ranging modernist literary landscape. It considers how the publishing networks and collaborative projects which connected writers in the period were central to the creation of English-language modernism. It also introduces students to recent critical debates in modernism studies, with separate chapters on modernism and the writing of geography and exile, the relationship between modernism, obscenity and literary censorship, and modernism and mass culture - with a particular focus on the modernist interest in film - and modernism and politics. The book also considers the changing meaning of the word modernism through twentieth and twenty-first century criticism. Key Features:*Introduces a wide range of modernist writers, including familiar authors such as T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis and less canonical figures such as H.D., Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes and Laura Riding*Modernism is presented as an extensive literary landscape, something that has featured significantly in recent critical discussions of modernism*Introduces students to modernist techniques and to recent debates*Shows how English-language modernism emerged, and connects this to recent debates about modernist publishing and networksKey Words: Modernism, Modernist Literature, Publishing, Obscenity, Censorship, Mass Culture, Politics

Medieval literature can be daunting. This critical guide is designed to help readers to relax in the company of diverting and entertaining voices from that 'other country' that is the past. Medieval Literature 1300-1500 offers close readings of Middle English texts placed within the culture with which they interact. Famous works, like The Canterbury Tales, are discussed alongside lesser-known poems, prose, and plays, in five thematically-organised chapters, accompanied by helpful critical apparatus. Reflecting the proliferation of user-friendly editions, many available on-line, this book extends the range of Middle English writing for which there is accessible up-to-date critical support, enabling the student, the general reader, the course designer, and the aspirant specialist, to read widely and with enjoyment in the medieval period.Key Features* Offers succinct close-readings of well-known texts of the period* Provides cultural-historical background to England in the Middle Ages* Reflects on the construction of an English literary 'tradition'* Cross-references literary texts against historical events and other art forms

This book provides a critical assessment of dramatic literature since 1995, situating texts, companies and writers in a cultural, political and social context. It examines the shifting role of the playwright, the dominant genres and emerging styles of the past decade and how they are related. Beginning with an examination of how dramatic literature and the writer are placed in the contemporary theatre, the book then provides detailed analyses of the texts, companies and writing processes involved in six different professional contexts: new writing, verbatim theatre, writing and devising, Black and Asian theatre, writing for young people and adaptation and transposition. The chapters cover contemporary practitioners, including Simon Stephens, Gregory Burke, Robin Soans, Alecky Blythe, Kneehigh Theatre, Punchdrunk, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Edward Bond, Filter Theatre and Headlong, and offers detailed case-studies and examples of their work. Key Features* The first book to examine contemporary British drama from the In-Yer-Face era (1995 - 2000) to the present day and track the changes and developments through this period* Extended case-studies of Simon Stephens, Gregory Burke and Caryl Churchill and the last decade of new writing in Britain* Focus on recent adaptation, including Kneehigh Theatre, Punchdrunk, Filter Theatre and Headlong

Introduces postcolonial literary studies through close readings of a wide range of fiction and poetryThis guide places the literary works themselves at the centre of its discussions, examining how writers from Africa, Australasia, the Caribbean, Canada, Ireland, and South Asia have engaged with the challenges that beset postcolonial societies. Dave Gunning discusses many of the most-studied works of postcolonial literature, from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart to Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, as well as works by more recent writers like Chris Abani, Tahmima Anam and Shani Mootoo. Each chapter explores a key theme through drawing together works from various times and places. The book concludes with an extensive guide to further reading and tips on how to write about postcolonial literature successfully.Key FeaturesClose analysis of texts including, Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners, J.M Coetzee’s Disgrace, Roddy Doyle’s A Star Called Henry, Shani Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night, Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Tahmima Anam’s A Golden Age, Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost, and Amitav Ghosh’s In an Antique Land, as well as poetry by Derek Walcott, Eavan Boland, Agha Shahid Ali, Chris Abani and others.Discusses important new themes in postcolonial literature including global Islam, postcolonial sexualities and the representation of military conflict.Includes a Chronology, a Guide to Further Reading, and Tips on Writing about Postcolonial Literature.

New edition of bestselling introductory text outlining the history and ways of reading Gothic literatureThis revised edition includes: A new chapter on Contemporary Gothic which explores the Gothic of the early twenty first century and looks at new critical developmentsAn updated Bibliography of critical sources and a revised ChronologyThe book opens with a Chronology and an Introduction to the principal texts and key critical terms, followed by five chapters: The Gothic Heyday 1760-1820; Gothic 1820-1865; Gothic Proximities 1865-1900; Twentieth Century; and Contemporary Gothic. The discussion examines how the Gothic has developed in different national contexts and in different forms, including novels, novellas, poems, films, radio and television. Each chapter concludes with a close reading of a specific text – Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Dracula, The Silence of the Lambs and The Historian – to illustrate ways in which contextual discussion informs critical analysis. The book ends with a Conclusion outlining possible future developments within scholarship on the Gothic.

Provides a thorough history of British and North American children’s literature from the 17th century to the present dayNow fully revised and updated, this new edition includes: • a new chapter on illustrated and picture books (and includes 8 illustrations);• an expanded glossary;• an updated further reading section.Children’s Literature traces the development of the main genres of children’s books one by one, including fables, fantasy, adventure stories, moral tales, family stories, school stories, children’s poetry and illustrated and picture books. Grenby shows how these forms have evolved over 300 years and asks why most children’s books, even today, continue to fall into one or other of these generic categories.Combining detailed analysis of particular key texts and a broad survey of hundreds of books written and illustrated for children, this volume considers both long forgotten and still famous titles, as well as the new classics of the genre – all of them loved by children and adults alike, but also fascinating and challenging for the critic and cultural historian. Key Features• Broad historical range• Coverage of neglected as well as well-known texts• Focus on the main genres of children’s literature• Thoroughly up-to-date in terms of primary texts and critical material

This critical study of Asian American literature discusses work by internationally successful writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Chang-rae Lee, Bharati Mukherjee, Amy Tan and others in their historical, cultural and critical contexts. The focus of this book is on contemporary writing, from the 1970s onwards, although it also traces over a hundred years of Asian American literary production in prose, poetry, drama and criticism. The main body of the book comprises five periodized chapters that highlight important events in a nation-state that has historically rendered Asian Americans invisible. Of particular importance to the writers selected for case studies are questions of racial identity, cultural history and literary value with respect to dominant American ideologies.Key features* The first readily available introductory guide to Asian American literature* Discusses a representative range of Asian American literature, providing asense of the diversity of the field and of its key themes and modes of writing* Provides close readings of key texts in the form of case studies in their cultural, historical and critical contexts* Encourages reflection on questions of literary value, canonicity and the scopeand purpose of literary studies

This book helps the reader make sense of the most commonly studied writer in the world. It starts with a brief explanation of how Shakespeare's writings have come down to us as a series of scripts for actors in the early modern theatre industry of London. The main chapters of the book approach the texts through a series of questions: 'what's changed since Shakespeare's time?', 'to what uses has Shakespeare been put?', and 'what value is there in Shakespeare?' These questions go to the heart of why we study Shakespeare at all, which question the book encourages the readers to answer for themselves in relation to their own critical writing.Key Features* A chronology of Shakespeare's career as an actor/dramatist that locates him within the theatre industry of his time* New readings of twelve plays that form a core of the Shakespeare canon: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard 2, Henry 5, Hamlet, Othello, All's Well that Ends Well, The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, The Tempest, and Timon of Athens* Critical analyses organized by genre (comedies, histories, tragedies, and romance) and by four key critical approaches: authorship, performance, identities, and materialism* An extensive resources section, including a glossary of the important critical terms that are often used in debates about Shakespeare

This concise introduction to the literature of an exciting and influential period opens with an overview of the historical and cultural context in which English Renaissance literature was produced, and a discussion of its contemporary and subsequent critical reception. The following chapters survey the major Renaissance genres of drama, poetry and prose. Each chapter provides illustrative case studies of canonical and non-canonical key texts by authors such as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, John Milton, Sir Philip Sidney, John Donne, Aemilia Lanyer, Sir Francis Bacon, Thomas Nashe, and Lady Mary Wroth. A guide to further reading accompanies each chapter, complemented by a section of student resources at the end of the book. The final chapter summarises significant developments in English Renaissance literary culture, and discusses the future direction of Renaissance literary scholarship.Key Features*Detailed readings of Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Milton's 'Lycidas', Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, Shakespeare's Sonnets, Venus and Adonis and Hamlet, Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Jonson's The Alchemist, Lanyer's 'The Description of Cookham', Bacon's Essays, Donne's sermons, Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller and Wroth's The Countess of Montgomery's Urania*A broad overview of Renaissance literature and the context in which it was produced*An accessible introduction to Renaissance literary criticism, including past and present debates about the Renaissance 'canon'*A variety of study aids, including end-of-chapter summaries of key points, a glossary of literary and historical terms, a chronology, advice on essay writing, sample essay questions and plans, and a guide to further reading and electronic research resources.

This concise introduction to the literature of an exciting and influential period opens with an overview of the historical and cultural context in which English Renaissance literature was produced, and a discussion of its contemporary and subsequent critical reception. The following chapters survey the major Renaissance genres of drama, poetry and prose. Each chapter provides illustrative case studies of canonical and non-canonical key texts by authors such as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, John Milton, Sir Philip Sidney, John Donne, Aemilia Lanyer, Sir Francis Bacon, Thomas Nashe, and Lady Mary Wroth. A guide to further reading accompanies each chapter, complemented by a section of student resources at the end of the book. The final chapter summarises significant developments in English Renaissance literary culture, and discusses the future direction of Renaissance literary scholarship.Key Features*Detailed readings of Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Milton's 'Lycidas', Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, Shakespeare's Sonnets, Venus and Adonis and Hamlet, Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Jonson's The Alchemist, Lanyer's 'The Description of Cookham', Bacon's Essays, Donne's sermons, Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller and Wroth's The Countess of Montgomery's Urania*A broad overview of Renaissance literature and the context in which it was produced*An accessible introduction to Renaissance literary criticism, including past and present debates about the Renaissance 'canon'*A variety of study aids, including end-of-chapter summaries of key points, a glossary of literary and historical terms, a chronology, advice on essay writing, sample essay questions and plans, and a guide to further reading and electronic research resources.