Perspectives in Criticism – serie

The Religious Sonnets of Dylan Thomas: A Study in Imagery and Meaning, by H. H. Kleinman, leads readers directly into Dylan Thomas’s most challenging early work—the ten-poem sequence often called the religious sonnets—through careful, classroom-tested exegesis. Rather than circling around the poems with abstract labels, Kleinman illuminates their dense symbolic network: the Incarnation and Passion, the story of Abraham and Isaac, the myth of Hercules, and the constellations. He situates the sonnets’ genesis in the mid-1930s, tracks their expansion from seven to ten poems in *Twenty-Five Poems*, and surveys their reception by critics such as Francis Scarfe, Marshall Stearns, Elder Olson, and William York Tindall. Throughout, he shows how Thomas binds biblical narrative, apocrypha, and myth into a prosodically rigorous music that moves from earthbound perplexity to hard-won affirmation.Kleinman also considers Thomas’s contested critical reputation. Was he apocalyptic, surrealist, Freudian, or Welsh nationalist? Kleinman rejects these reductive categories, showing instead a poet of disciplined imagery, carefully patterned consonantal sound, and formal control. He explores Thomas’s debts to Hopkins, Yeats, Eliot, and Owen while highlighting his independence from Continental surrealism and his limited interest in Welsh folklore or prosody. The study reveals a young poet wrestling with faith and doubt, shaping chaos into symbol and music. Written with critical clarity and pedagogical vitality, *The Religious Sonnets of Dylan Thomas* offers scholars, students, and general readers alike a reliable guide through Thomas’s densest thicket of imagery, illuminating both the intricacies of his sonnet sequence and the broader poetic achievement it anticipates.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1963.

This study explores the radical poetics of William Butler Yeats and Wallace Stevens, focusing on their contributions to modern literary theory and the unique role of imagination in their works. By tracing their poetic theories within the broader context of post-Romantic criticism, the essay critiques both the romantic idealism of the 19th century and the contextual theories of modern criticism. Yeats and Stevens challenge the notion of poetry as a direct avenue to transcendental truth, redefining the role of the imagination as an artistic force that operates within its own linguistic medium, unburdened by metaphysical or empirical agendas. Their poetics, often interpreted through contrasting lenses such as romantic organicism or the "visionary" archetypes championed by scholars like Northrop Frye, instead offer a framework where poems are self-contained entities. These works articulate the tension between the impoverished modern imagination and its capacity to find freedom and meaning within the act of creation itself.Through close readings of Yeats's and Stevens's prose and poetry, this essay argues that their works embody a "poetics of will," wherein the imagination, though constrained by the limitations of a disenchanted modern world, still achieves a vital cultural role. Unlike their predecessors, who viewed poetry as a conduit to metaphysical revelation, Yeats and Stevens position the poem as an autonomous artifact that captures fleeting moments of freedom and beauty. For the poet, the creative act becomes an assertion of control over the chaos of inner and outer realities, while for the reader, the well-wrought poem offers a brief but profound engagement with the artist’s vision. In this way, Yeats and Stevens redefine the purpose of poetry, suggesting its essential contribution to human happiness and cultural resilience in an age marked by existential and aesthetic challenges.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1968.

Interpretations in Shakespeare's Sonnets offers a deep exploration into the timeless beauty and complexity of Shakespeare’s celebrated poetic collection. The book examines how Sonnets have been both misunderstood and admired across centuries, tracing historical biases and shifting critical perceptions. From their initial neglect in the 17th century to their 19th-century elevation as masterpieces of lyrical intensity, the Sonnets have often been constrained by readers’ attempts to impose narrative structure or conform them to preconceived notions of poetry.Rejecting traditional divisions, such as the binary grouping of the Fair Youth and Dark Lady poems, this work underscores the individuality of each Sonnet and the nuanced relationships between them. Through detailed analysis, it reveals how Shakespeare’s poetry resists categorization, embracing ambiguity and interconnected themes. By examining the rich linguistic, emotional, and thematic layers of the Sonnets, the book illuminates their enduring power to challenge, inspire, and captivate readers and scholars alike.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1963.

The Idea of Coleridge's Criticism explores the profound, often polarizing legacy of Samuel Taylor Coleridge as a literary critic, whose influence continues to resonate in modern thought. This study examines the richness and complexity of Coleridge's critical theories, particularly his groundbreaking ideas on imagination, organic unity, and the interplay between form and content in poetry. It navigates the spectrum of scholarly opinions, from skepticism over his philosophical debts to the Germans to admiration for his psychological insights and practical criticism. By analyzing his contributions within the broader context of Romanticism and Western criticism, this book emphasizes Coleridge's role as a thinker who unified poetic theory, philosophy, and literary practice in ways that shaped generations of critical discourse.With a focus on the inherent unity of Coleridge's critical vision, the book contends that his theories extend beyond the fragmentary and eclectic criticisms often attributed to him. It delves into his synthesis of Romantic idealism and systematic analysis, showcasing his ability to reconcile opposites—subject and object, imagination and reason—within an organic framework. Highlighting his enduring relevance, the book underscores how Coleridge's belief in the logic and value of imaginative language provided a compelling defense against the encroachment of scientific positivism in literature. Ultimately, this study positions Coleridge not only as a Romantic theorist or pioneer of depth psychology but as a towering figure whose critical insights retain permanent significance for literary interpretation and appreciation.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1962.

Helmut Bonheim’s Joyce’s Benefictions offers a lucid, tightly argued tour of Joyce’s major works, reading rebellion and anti-authoritarian play as the motor of both style and theme. Moving from Dubliners and A Portrait to Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, Bonheim shows how Joyce’s “outlaw” procedures—parody, portmanteau, montage—are inseparable from his persistent fascination with the very institutions he resists. Chapters on Leopold Bloom’s humane but compromised paternity, the alphabetic and musical “os” motif in Ulysses, and the serial role-reversals that unsettle any fixed hierarchy frame Joyce’s art as a long experiment in fusing technique with a heterodox ethics. Part of the influential Perspectives in Criticism series, the book situates Joyce’s innovations within broader debates about authority, language, and the cyclical logics of history.Equally attentive to close reading and big claims, Bonheim reconceives Finnegans Wake as a theater of competing sovereignties—fathers, kings, priests—perpetually toppled and reinstalled, with Earwicker’s fall and return emblematic of the work’s comic-epic design. A culminating chapter casts Joyce’s art as an “epic of anarchy,” balancing formal audacity with a surprisingly stable prose lucidity that keeps even the Wake’s densest passages tethered to intelligible rhythms and social comedy. For scholars and advanced students of modernism, Joyce’s Benefictions remains a compelling synthesis: a study that models how to read across oeuvre, medium, and myth to disclose the ethical pressure under Joyce’s verbal pyrotechnics.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1964.

Perspectives in Criticism: Introduction to the Psychoanalysis of Mallarmé offers a groundbreaking examination of Stéphane Mallarmé’s life and work through the lens of psychocriticism. This book, translated for the first time into English, brings a pioneering methodology to the study of literature, marrying the precision of psychoanalytic theory with the subtle art of literary interpretation. Mallarmé’s evocative and often enigmatic poetry serves as the canvas upon which the author explores the depths of the poet's unconscious, uncovering the networks of metaphor and personal myth that underpin his creative imagination. From the early loss of his mother and sister to the enduring influence of these traumas on his symbolic language, the book sheds light on Mallarmé’s artistic process while tracing the evolution of psychocriticism as a discipline.Rich with textual analysis and biographical context, this study situates Mallarmé’s work within a broader psychoanalytic framework, offering insights into his "complexes" and the latent meanings of his poetry. Whether discussing the symbolic veil of Hérodiade, the interplay of life and death in Las de l’amer repos, or the intricate associations of maternal and sibling imagery, the author reveals how Mallarmé’s art was shaped by profound psychological forces. Ideal for literary scholars, psychologists, and enthusiasts of Mallarmé’s oeuvre, Perspectives in Criticism opens a fascinating window into the intersections of poetry, psyche, and cultural analysis, presenting a compelling argument for the continued relevance of psychoanalytic approaches to literary studies.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1963.

The Religious Sonnets of Dylan Thomas: A Study in Imagery and Meaning, by H. H. Kleinman, leads readers directly into Dylan Thomas’s most challenging early work—the ten-poem sequence often called the religious sonnets—through careful, classroom-tested exegesis. Rather than circling around the poems with abstract labels, Kleinman illuminates their dense symbolic network: the Incarnation and Passion, the story of Abraham and Isaac, the myth of Hercules, and the constellations. He situates the sonnets’ genesis in the mid-1930s, tracks their expansion from seven to ten poems in *Twenty-Five Poems*, and surveys their reception by critics such as Francis Scarfe, Marshall Stearns, Elder Olson, and William York Tindall. Throughout, he shows how Thomas binds biblical narrative, apocrypha, and myth into a prosodically rigorous music that moves from earthbound perplexity to hard-won affirmation.Kleinman also considers Thomas’s contested critical reputation. Was he apocalyptic, surrealist, Freudian, or Welsh nationalist? Kleinman rejects these reductive categories, showing instead a poet of disciplined imagery, carefully patterned consonantal sound, and formal control. He explores Thomas’s debts to Hopkins, Yeats, Eliot, and Owen while highlighting his independence from Continental surrealism and his limited interest in Welsh folklore or prosody. The study reveals a young poet wrestling with faith and doubt, shaping chaos into symbol and music. Written with critical clarity and pedagogical vitality, *The Religious Sonnets of Dylan Thomas* offers scholars, students, and general readers alike a reliable guide through Thomas’s densest thicket of imagery, illuminating both the intricacies of his sonnet sequence and the broader poetic achievement it anticipates.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1963.

This study explores the radical poetics of William Butler Yeats and Wallace Stevens, focusing on their contributions to modern literary theory and the unique role of imagination in their works. By tracing their poetic theories within the broader context of post-Romantic criticism, the essay critiques both the romantic idealism of the 19th century and the contextual theories of modern criticism. Yeats and Stevens challenge the notion of poetry as a direct avenue to transcendental truth, redefining the role of the imagination as an artistic force that operates within its own linguistic medium, unburdened by metaphysical or empirical agendas. Their poetics, often interpreted through contrasting lenses such as romantic organicism or the "visionary" archetypes championed by scholars like Northrop Frye, instead offer a framework where poems are self-contained entities. These works articulate the tension between the impoverished modern imagination and its capacity to find freedom and meaning within the act of creation itself.Through close readings of Yeats's and Stevens's prose and poetry, this essay argues that their works embody a "poetics of will," wherein the imagination, though constrained by the limitations of a disenchanted modern world, still achieves a vital cultural role. Unlike their predecessors, who viewed poetry as a conduit to metaphysical revelation, Yeats and Stevens position the poem as an autonomous artifact that captures fleeting moments of freedom and beauty. For the poet, the creative act becomes an assertion of control over the chaos of inner and outer realities, while for the reader, the well-wrought poem offers a brief but profound engagement with the artist’s vision. In this way, Yeats and Stevens redefine the purpose of poetry, suggesting its essential contribution to human happiness and cultural resilience in an age marked by existential and aesthetic challenges.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1968.

Interpretations in Shakespeare's Sonnets offers a deep exploration into the timeless beauty and complexity of Shakespeare’s celebrated poetic collection. The book examines how Sonnets have been both misunderstood and admired across centuries, tracing historical biases and shifting critical perceptions. From their initial neglect in the 17th century to their 19th-century elevation as masterpieces of lyrical intensity, the Sonnets have often been constrained by readers’ attempts to impose narrative structure or conform them to preconceived notions of poetry.Rejecting traditional divisions, such as the binary grouping of the Fair Youth and Dark Lady poems, this work underscores the individuality of each Sonnet and the nuanced relationships between them. Through detailed analysis, it reveals how Shakespeare’s poetry resists categorization, embracing ambiguity and interconnected themes. By examining the rich linguistic, emotional, and thematic layers of the Sonnets, the book illuminates their enduring power to challenge, inspire, and captivate readers and scholars alike.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1963.

Helmut Bonheim’s Joyce’s Benefictions offers a lucid, tightly argued tour of Joyce’s major works, reading rebellion and anti-authoritarian play as the motor of both style and theme. Moving from Dubliners and A Portrait to Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, Bonheim shows how Joyce’s “outlaw” procedures—parody, portmanteau, montage—are inseparable from his persistent fascination with the very institutions he resists. Chapters on Leopold Bloom’s humane but compromised paternity, the alphabetic and musical “os” motif in Ulysses, and the serial role-reversals that unsettle any fixed hierarchy frame Joyce’s art as a long experiment in fusing technique with a heterodox ethics. Part of the influential Perspectives in Criticism series, the book situates Joyce’s innovations within broader debates about authority, language, and the cyclical logics of history.Equally attentive to close reading and big claims, Bonheim reconceives Finnegans Wake as a theater of competing sovereignties—fathers, kings, priests—perpetually toppled and reinstalled, with Earwicker’s fall and return emblematic of the work’s comic-epic design. A culminating chapter casts Joyce’s art as an “epic of anarchy,” balancing formal audacity with a surprisingly stable prose lucidity that keeps even the Wake’s densest passages tethered to intelligible rhythms and social comedy. For scholars and advanced students of modernism, Joyce’s Benefictions remains a compelling synthesis: a study that models how to read across oeuvre, medium, and myth to disclose the ethical pressure under Joyce’s verbal pyrotechnics.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1964.

The Idea of Coleridge's Criticism explores the profound, often polarizing legacy of Samuel Taylor Coleridge as a literary critic, whose influence continues to resonate in modern thought. This study examines the richness and complexity of Coleridge's critical theories, particularly his groundbreaking ideas on imagination, organic unity, and the interplay between form and content in poetry. It navigates the spectrum of scholarly opinions, from skepticism over his philosophical debts to the Germans to admiration for his psychological insights and practical criticism. By analyzing his contributions within the broader context of Romanticism and Western criticism, this book emphasizes Coleridge's role as a thinker who unified poetic theory, philosophy, and literary practice in ways that shaped generations of critical discourse.With a focus on the inherent unity of Coleridge's critical vision, the book contends that his theories extend beyond the fragmentary and eclectic criticisms often attributed to him. It delves into his synthesis of Romantic idealism and systematic analysis, showcasing his ability to reconcile opposites—subject and object, imagination and reason—within an organic framework. Highlighting his enduring relevance, the book underscores how Coleridge's belief in the logic and value of imaginative language provided a compelling defense against the encroachment of scientific positivism in literature. Ultimately, this study positions Coleridge not only as a Romantic theorist or pioneer of depth psychology but as a towering figure whose critical insights retain permanent significance for literary interpretation and appreciation.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1962.