New Casebooks – serie

J. K. Rowling's popular series of books about the boy wizard Harry Potter has captivated readers of all ages around the world. Selling more than 400 million copies, and adapted into highly successful feature films, the stories have attracted both critical acclaim and controversy.In this collection of brand new essays, an international team of contributors examines the complete Harry Potter series from a variety of critical angles and approaches. There are discussions on topics ranging from fairytale, race and gender, through to food, medicine, queer theory and the occult. The volume also includes coverage of the films and the afterlife of the series with the opening of Rowling's 'Pottermore' website.Essential reading for anyone with an interest in the Harry Potter phenomenon, this exciting resource provides thoughtful new ways of exploring the issues and concepts found within Rowling's world.

J. K. Rowling's popular series of books about the boy wizard Harry Potter has captivated readers of all ages around the world. Selling more than 400 million copies, and adapted into highly successful feature films, the stories have attracted both critical acclaim and controversy.In this collection of brand new essays, an international team of contributors examines the complete Harry Potter series from a variety of critical angles and approaches. There are discussions on topics ranging from fairytale, race and gender, through to food, medicine, queer theory and the occult. The volume also includes coverage of the films and the afterlife of the series with the opening of Rowling's 'Pottermore' website.Essential reading for anyone with an interest in the Harry Potter phenomenon, this exciting resource provides thoughtful new ways of exploring the issues and concepts found within Rowling's world.

This collection of recent essays on James Joyce''s masterpiece, Ulysses, provides an up-to-date overview of debates in Joycean scholarship, with particular emphasis on gender, postcolonial and ideological critiques, and deconstructive readings. The essays are framed by an introduction that assesses particularity and universal schemes in Joyce''s novel, including its role in modern literature.

This New Casebook explores the enduring significance of George Eliot''s novels The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Silas Marner (1861). Eliot''s radical cultural politics and the arrestingly original fictional strategies that characterise two of her most popular novels are explored from a variety of perspectives - feminist, historicist, structuralist and psychoanalytic.

Julius Caesar: A New Casebook provides students and academics with a selection of important essays by leading contemporary critics on Shakespeare''s first "Globe" play. New historicist, feminist, psychoanalytic and Marxist readings of the tragedy have been chosen to highlight the urgency with which this drama of prophecy, interpretation and political crisis speaks to twenty-first century concerns about democracy, the media and mass communication.

A collection of essays on one of the twentieth century''s most popular yet critically neglected authors, this book explores the full range of Thomas''s work. It uses approaches - such as marxism, feminism and deconstruction - previously neglected by critics and focuses on his complex relationships with surrealism, modernism, Wales, popular culture, the USA and his own contemporaries. In doing so, it restores Thomas to his rightful place as a major twentieth century literary figure and cultural icon.

Revenge has been an issue in all societies from ancient times to the present day. In western culture, the revenge plot has been one of the linchpins of narrative structure, it is central to much Greek tragedy and was immensely popular in Elizabethan and Jacobean theatres. In this volume Stevie Simkin has collected essays on five plays which are representative of this genre: The Spanish Tragedy, The Revenger''s Tragedy, The Changeling, The White Devil and ''Tis Pity She''s A Whore. These plays are a rich source of ideas about Renaissance society and politics; recurrent issues include sexuality, the complex relations of gender and power, and the relationship between the individual and the state.The collection as a whole demonstrates a variety of recent critical approaches to the genre, including feminist, psychoanalytic, new historicist and cultural materialist viewpoints, inspiring students to revisit these plays and to engage directly with the politics of the past and present, and the ways in which they interrelate.

Roald Dahl is one of the world's best-loved authors. More than twenty years after his death, his books are still highly popular with children and have inspired numerous feature films – yet he remains a controversial figure.This volume, the first collection of academic essays ever to be devoted to Dahl's work, brings together a team of well-known scholars of children's literature to explore the man, his books for children, and his complex attitudes towards various key subjects. Including essays on education, crime, Dahl's humour, his long-term collaboration with the artist Quentin Blake, and film adaptations, this fascinating collection offers a unique insight into the writer and his world.

Roald Dahl is one of the world's best-loved authors. More than twenty years after his death, his books are still highly popular with children and have inspired numerous feature films – yet he remains a controversial figure.This volume, the first collection of academic essays ever to be devoted to Dahl's work, brings together a team of well-known scholars of children's literature to explore the man, his books for children, and his complex attitudes towards various key subjects. Including essays on education, crime, Dahl's humour, his long-term collaboration with the artist Quentin Blake, and film adaptations, this fascinating collection offers a unique insight into the writer and his world.

Beginning with the publication of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 1950 and concluding with the appearance of The Last Battle in 1956, C. S. Lewis's seven-book series chronicling the adventures of a group of young people in the fictional land of Narnia has become a worldwide classic of children's literature.This stimulating collection of original essays by critics in a wide range of disciplines explores the past place, present status, and future importance of The Chronicles of Narnia. With essays ranging in focus from textual analysis to film and new media adaptations, to implications of war/trauma and race and gender, this cutting-edge New Casebook encourages readers to think about this much-loved series in fresh and exciting ways.

Beginning with the publication of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 1950 and concluding with the appearance of The Last Battle in 1956, C. S. Lewis's seven-book series chronicling the adventures of a group of young people in the fictional land of Narnia has become a worldwide classic of children's literature.This stimulating collection of original essays by critics in a wide range of disciplines explores the past place, present status, and future importance of The Chronicles of Narnia. With essays ranging in focus from textual analysis to film and new media adaptations, to implications of war/trauma and race and gender, this cutting-edge New Casebook encourages readers to think about this much-loved series in fresh and exciting ways.

This compelling New Casebook is the first essay collection devoted to the work of groundbreaking American author Robert Cormier. Written by a team of international children's literature experts, the volume offers a variety of critical and theoretical approaches to the range of Cormier's controversial young adult novels.The newly-commissioned essays explore the author's earlier best-known writings for teenagers as well as his later less critically examined texts, focussing on key issues such as adolescence, identity, bullying and child corruption. Recognizing Cormier's achievement, this long-overdue critical resource is essential reading for anyone with an interest in his influential work and lasting impact on young adult fiction.

This compelling New Casebook is the first essay collection devoted to the work of groundbreaking American author Robert Cormier. Written by a team of international children's literature experts, the volume offers a variety of critical and theoretical approaches to the range of Cormier's controversial young adult novels.The newly-commissioned essays explore the author's earlier best-known writings for teenagers as well as his later less critically examined texts, focussing on key issues such as adolescence, identity, bullying and child corruption. Recognizing Cormier's achievement, this long-overdue critical resource is essential reading for anyone with an interest in his influential work and lasting impact on young adult fiction.

This vibrant collection of original essays sheds new light on all of Fowles' writings, with a special focus on The French Lieutenant's Woman as the most widely studied of Fowles' works. The impressive cast of contributors offers an outstanding range of expertise on Fowles, providing fresh reassessments and new perspectives.

Over the last quarter-century, feminist criticism of Shakespeare has greatly expanded and enriched the range of interpretations of the Shakespearean texts, their original historical location, and subsequent reinterpretation. Characteristically it weaves between past and present, driven by a commitment both to intervene in contemporary cultural politics and to recover a fuller sense of the sexual politics of the literary heritage. Collecting together essays which offer detailed accounts of particular plays with others that take a broader overview of the field, this Casebook showcases the range of critical strategies used by feminist criticism, and illustrates how vital attention to the politics of gender and sexuality is to a full understanding and appreciation of Shakespearean drama.

What are the differences between traditional readings of Hamlet and those produced by modern criticism? What sort of questions does structuralist or feminist criticism raise? What issues are foregrounded by contemporary critics and how do these challenge our understanding of the play? This new collection on Hamlet brings together three traditional essays on the play and sets them alongside nine pieces of modern criticism that reflect the way in which contemporary discussion of Shakespeare is now heavily indebted to the ideas of structuralism, feminism, deconstruction, Marxism and new historicism. Complete with Introduction and a guide to Further Reading, the volume offers students a clear account of how the exciting developments in modern literary criticism and theory have influenced the current debate about Hamlet.

Middlemarch, by common consent one of the most important novels in English, has always stimulated outstanding criticism. Over the past twenty years or so, it has also become a favourite novel for consideration by critics wishing to develop and explore new ways of looking at the novel form. The excitement and originality of such criticism is reflected fully in this volume, which presents a whole range of current ways of looking at Middlemarch. The collection as a whole, along with a clear introduction and a guide to Further Reading, also provides a fascinating sense of how criticism of the novel is a continuing debate, as critics take up and dispute received views - in the process, offering us an endlessly renewed and fresh sense of Middlemarch. The collection as a whole, along with a clear introduction and a guide to Further Reading, also provides a fascinating sense of how criticism of the novel is a continuing debate, as critics take up and dispute received views - in the process, offering us an endlessly renewed and fresh sense of Middlemarch.

Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse have often been described as 'poetic' and 'difficult'. The essays in this book show how attentive readers can follow their stories and relate them directly to the 'real' world. Some work out 'who speaks'. Some explore the novels' debates about England in the 1920s: about power and imperialism and the War, about contemporary ideas of personal identity, and about women's lives. All demonstrate that new critical methods lead to active engagement with the texts.

A new collection of recent essays by the most important scholars, critics and theorists of today, with a lively and accessible introduction by Alan Sinfield. In diverse ways, Macbeth is approached as a play where provocative ideas about gender language and political structures are exposed and tested. This New Casebook is full of exciting ideas about Macbeth and is a convenient way to assess recent critical developments through the work of the best current commentators on Shakespeare.

Thomas Hardy has long been critically constructed as 'poet of Wessex' and 'novelist of Character and Environment'. This volume offers to deconstruct such a mythic 'Hardy' in selecting contemporary critical essays which re-present Tess from very different critical perspectives. Feminist, cultural-materialist and poststructuralist approaches in particular explore gender, class and language by way of the novel's riven textuality. In the process, the Introduction claims, Tess emerges as a potent postmodern text.

Every critical theory in the last twenty years has, it seems, cut its teeth on Wuthering Heights, and the New Casebook on Wuthering Heights includes essays of major importance from positions including liberal humanism, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, Marxism and feminism. The editor suggests that this remarkable variety of persuasive readings is itself a critical statement, establishing the link between what one critic calls 'our spellbinding admiration for Wuthering Heights and our remarkable inability to agree on what it means'.

This New Casebook contains ten essays written about Blake's poetry since 1970 selected to show the diversity of Blake criticism during the last twenty years and the ways in which contemporary critical theories open up new readings of his work. Essays representative of Marxist, psychoanalytic, deconstructionist, feminist and new historicist criticism are included. David Punter's Introduction places these in the context of recent developments in critical theory and shows how today's student can best engage with Blake's complex and rewarding work.

This text gathers together interpretations of Beckett's best-known plays, illustrating a range of theoretical approaches from deconstruction to reader-response theory, psychoanalysis and feminism. Included, as well, is an introduction by Steven Connor, assessing the mutual relations between Beckett's work and contemporary literary theory. There are also introductory notes to the essays. The essays are contibuted by: Mary Bryden, James Calderwood, Steven Connor, Jane Hale, Sylvie Henning, Wolfgang Iser, Andrew Kennedy, Paul Lawley, Jeffrey Nealon, Judith Roof, and Gabriele Schwab. Steven Connor has written books on Dickens, Beckett and Postmodernist Culture.

This collection of recent essays on James Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses, provides an up-to-date overview of debates in Joycean scholarship, with particular emphasis on gender, postcolonial and ideological critiques, and deconstructive readings. The essays are framed by an introduction that assesses particularity and universal schemes in Joyce's novel, including its role in modern literature.

Ever since Edmund Wilson's Dickens: the Two Scrooges, one of the hallmarks of Dickens criticism has been a disturbing kind of socio-psychological probing, with insights nowadays being drawn from poststructuralist and feminist thought. At the same time, however, some critics are beginning to rehabilitate 'old-fashioned' topics such as Dickens's characters, his comic plotting, and his relations with his readers - then and now. The New Casebook includes an extensive introduction which connects these trends to developments in literary theory. And of the hundreds of recent accounts of Great Expectations, twelve of the most representative are presented uncut or in substantial extracts.

This New Casebook on Shakespeare's second historical tetralogy (Richard II, Henry IV Parts I and II and Henry V) is an anthropology of contemporary criticism, all produced within the last twenty years, most within the last ten. It aims to problematise rather than merely reflect traditional methods and assumptions. Most of the essays deal with the historical plays as interconnected elements via the theoretical perspectives of New Historicism, feminism, psychoanalysis, deconstruction and Marxism. Other essays on individual plays represent a further range of critical methods and theoretical approaches, including linguistics, anthropology, social history, textual and bibliographical studies and cultural materialism.

This volume offers a selection of criticism from Geoffrey Hartman's work of the mid 1960s through Marxist, historicist, structuralist and post-structuralist readings, all of which reflect the implications of the cultural and political changes in the course of the late 18th and 19th centuries. The introduction aims to clarify the issues and sets the critical extracts in context. Each extract has a brief explanatory endnote there is an essay suggesting further reading.

A new collection of modern essays on Lawrence's first major novel representative of both new and classic critical approaches. The essays - by leading critics such as Terry Eagleton, Kate Millett, Frank Kermode, John Goode and Paul Delany - explore a variety of ways of examining the novel including the psychoanalytic, feminist, marxist and formalist. The introduction sets these in the context of traditional ways of exploring the novel.

This volume offers a selection of important contemporary criticism on two of Jane Austen's most popular and widely-studied novels, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. The volume includes recent essays from Alastair Duckworth, Marilyn Butler, D.A. Miller, Isobel Armstrong and Karen Newman.