Princeton Essays in Literature – serie

Fredric Jameson's survey of Structuralism and Russian Formalism is, at the same time, a critique of their basic methodology. He lays bare the presuppositions of the two movements, clarifying the relationship between the synchronic methods of Saussurean linguistics and the realities of time and history.

In this book Robert Pinsky writes about contemporary poetry as it reflects its modernist and Romantic past. He isolates certain persistent ideas about poetry's situation relative to life and focuses on the conflict the poet faces between the nature of words and poetic forms on one side, and the nature of experience on the other. The author ranges for his often surprising examples from Keats to the great modernists such as Stevens and Williams, to the contents of recent magazines. He considers work by Ammons, Ashbery, Bogan, Ginsberg, Lowell, Merwin, O'Hara, and younger writers, offering judgments and enthusiasms from a viewpoint that is consistent but unstereotyped. Like his poetry, Robert Pinsky's criticism joins the traditional and the innovative in ways that are thoughtful and unmistakably his own. His book is a bold essay on the contemporary situation in poetry, on the dazzling achievements of modernism, and on the nature or "situation" of poetry itself.

A groundbreaking critical introduction to Structuralism and Russian Formalism by the acclaimed literary theoristIn The Prison-House of Language, Fredric Jameson, one of the most important literary and cultural critics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, provides a thorough historical and philosophical introduction to Structuralism and Russian Formalism. Combining a survey of these influential critical movements and a critique of their methodology, Jameson lays bare their presuppositions, questioning whether the methods of Saussurean linguistics can adequately capture the concrete realities of time and history. The result is a unique and thought-provoking confrontation of two major strands of modern thought and a central work in the development of Jameson’s monumental critical project.

“Robert Pinsky belongs to that rarest category of talents, a poet-critic.”—Robert LowellTwo important books of criticism by the Pulitzer Prize finalist and former U.S. poet laureate—now combined in a single volume with a new preface by the authorFor Robert Pinsky, poetry’s individual, human scale as a fundamentally vocal medium—with poems brought to life by one person at a time—gives poetry a unique importance in American and democratic culture and society. This book brings together two compelling works of criticism by the former poet laureate—The Situation of Poetry and Democracy, Culture and the Voice of Poetry, in which he makes a passionate and eloquent case for the vital role of poetry in a democracy.

Although Rene Char's distinctive voice has brought him to the forefront of contemporary French writers; his complex poetry has remained virtually inaccessible to the general reader. In this book an eminent authority on French literature describes Char's evolution and, through close readings, offers a clear and rewarding introduction to the poet's /uvre. James Lawler first traces Char's growth by delineating the myth that has guided his poetry for forty years. While the Surrealists exerted an early influence on the writer, his work diverged from theirs as he gave voice to a more personal attitude toward nature and art, to a refashioned poetics and thought. The author shows how Char's development culminates in the visionary symbolism of La Paroi et la Prairie, in which wall and prairie epitomize the unresolved tension of his mature writings. Throughout his readings, Professor Lawler supplements close textual analysis with consideration of thematic, mythological, and moral elements of the poetry, discussing each aspect as it illuminates the nature of Char's sensibility."The ten short poems [of La Paroi et la Prairie] are typical of their author," he writes, "and paradigmatic of a work that is a summit of French poetry since Valery and Apollinaire." Originally published in 1978. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

By making his argument about In Memoriam a continuous argument for it, Timothy Peltason brings to light a wider appreciation of its greatness and of its central place in the history of modern poetry. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Eugene Goodheart's remarkably compact and penetrating analysis examines the skeptic disposition that has informed advanced literary discourse over the past generation. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Although some of the most distinguished German novels written since about 1770 are generally considered to be Bildungsromane, the term Bildungsroman is all too frequently used in English without an awareness of the tradition from which it arose. Professor Swales concentrates on the roles of plot, characterization, and narrative commentary in novels by Wieland, Goethe, Stifter, Keller, Mann, and Hesse. By pointing out that the goal in each work is both elusive and problematic, he suggests a previously unsuspected ironic intent. His analysis adds to our awareness of the potentialities inherent in the novel. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

During the last sixty to seventy years avant-garde poetry in France has evolved in two directions: one toward poetry conceived as a means to an end, the other toward poetry as an end in itself. Focusing on Pierre Reverdy, Francis Ponge, Rene Char, Andre du Bouchet, Jacques Dupin, and Marcelin Pleynet as the modern French poets who most faithfully reflect these directions, Robert Greene's chronological study allows us to follow the two-pronged evolution of French poetry since 1910. Situating his argument in a detailed historical context and basing it on comparisons with artistic movements and the poets' own writings on art, and on extended analyses of selected representative poems, the author is able to establish a new intellectual-historical perspective on contemporary poetry. Professor Greene finds that whereas Reverdy, Char, du Bouchet, and Dupin all embrace a conception of poetry as quest, as a search for the absolute, as the Way of beauty or truth, Ponge and Pleynet hold to a view of poetry as jete, as a celebration of the relative, as the play and display of language in action.What knits them together, he concludes, is the way in which each poet sums up his era as a stage in the development of twentieth-century French poetry. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Jerome Mazzaro examines Dante's Vita Nuova as an artistic correlative to what Dante conceived as an image of himself. Specifically, he explores the structure of the work in relation to medieval views of memory, self, music, form, and interpretation, and against the facts of Dante's life and culture as we have come to know them. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Drawing on the entire corpus of Coleridge's prose, Emerson Marks shows how the poet's rationale was grounded in the mimetic theory that informed his distinction between a copy and an imitation which Coleridge himself labeled the universal principle of the fine arts." Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

A poet's tradition provides him with a sense of community that may be regarded as a necessary condition for poetry. Jenijoy La Belle, who studied with Roethke, here describes the cultural tradition that he defined and created for himself. In so doing, she demonstrates how an understanding of Roethke's sources and the influences on his work is essential for its interpretation. The author considers the sources of Roethke's poetry and the influence on him of a wide circle of poets including T. S. Eliot, Yeats, Whitman, Wordsworth, Smart, Donne, Sir John Davies, and Dante. In addition, she traces the changes in Roethke's response to his literary past as he moves from his early lyrics to his final sequences. His imitation of selected poets began as a conscious effort but later became a basic component of his imaginative faculties, encompassing an historical attitude and a psychological state. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press.These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The dramatic political struggle of Boris Pasternak and the continued success of his novel. Dr. Zhivago, have often taken center stage in discussions of this writer. Olga Raevsky Hughes chooses instead to focus on the aesthetics underlying Pasternak's snuggles and successes to explore the ways in which his views of art and the artist were applied in his writings. Professor Hughes examines those aspects of Pasternak's views on art that he himself considered crucial: the beginnings of poetry in his life, the relation of his art to life, his relationship to his time, and his responsibility to lite and to society. Pasternak's views on art are analyzed as he himself saw them in his autobiographies, critical essays, and letters; and also as they were reflected in his work. Pasternak is allowed to speak for himself: accordingly, all of his published works are used, including letters, little-known works, and available variants of his early poems. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press.These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The search for a substitute for religion, Adalaide Kirby Morris argues, occupies Stevens' poetic energy from his earliest to his latest work. It emerges in his patterns of speech, in his symbols, and in his poetic forms; it encompasses a critique of Christianity, often wryly humorous and sometimes bitterly satiric; and it results in a theory of poetry that becomes a mystical theology. At the center of this mystical theology, the author finds, is the conviction that God and the imagination arc one. The study concludes that poetry provides for Stevens a sanction, a solace, a form of order, a source of delight, and a means of redemption through which men arc saved, and natural fact is transformed into divine force. Originally published in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions.The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Michel Benamou's essays have established his reputation as a critical interpreter of Stevens' relation to the French poetic tradition. Mr. Benamou has now collected these essays in one volume, revising and expanding them, and has added a general introduction. He discusses, in turn, Stevens' affinities with and differences from Baudelaire, Laforgue, Mallarme, Apollinaire, the Impressionists, and the Cubists. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Although Hofmannsthal never completed his only novel Andreas, its theme--the quest for self through memory--haunted the Viennese writer and recurs again and again in his poems, libretti, and essays. Analyzing the fragment, David Miles discusses Hofmannsthal's understanding of memory and myth, Andreas' pivotal role in his work, and its place within the tradition of such novels as Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and Rilke's Malte. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In the nineteenth century, the French lyric poets imposed their diction on the theatrical genre and thus illuminated the essence of both poetry and theatre. Ten plays by Victor Hugo, the standard-bearer of the French romantic theatre, and Alfred de Musset, the romantic playwright most frequently performed in France today, are analyzed by Charles Affron to answer the question, "Can the dialetic form of the theatre accommodate the solitary elan of the lyric poet?" As a functional point of departure, he considers those characteristics of lyric poetry--time, voice, and metaphor--which bring us closest to the singular attitudes of Hugo and Musset. Then, examining the texts of Hernani, Les Burgraves, Torquemada, Fantasio, and Lorenzaccio as well as several lesser known plays, Mr. Affron discusses such topics as poetic time, the scope of analogy, theatrical and poetic rhetoric, the guises of the poet-hero, and the manner of sounding the poet's voice upon the stage. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press.These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In an original and provocative demonstration that Coleridge's later poetry took on a powerful metaphysical conception, Edward Kessler emphasizes Coleridge's struggle with language as a means of both expressing and creating Being. While many of Coleridge's late poems are generally viewed as fragments that constitute an aesthetic failure, Professor Kessler contends that what at first may appear to reflect Coleridge's inability to finish a poem can otherwise be seen as a deliberate rejection of what the poet came to see as a confining form. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Seeing Flannery O'Connor in the company of poets, rather than realistic prose writers, this work shows how she uses recurring figures of speech to transform or re-create the external world. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Thomas Hart examines Erich Auerbach's contention that Don Quixote is not a tragedy but a comedy and suggests that Auerbach's view was shaped by his reading of Ariosto's chivalric romance Orlando furioso. At the same time Hart argues that neither Don Quixote nor Orlando furioso is so free from political intention as Auerbach believed they were. He demonstrates that Cervantes shared not only Ariosto's attachment to the moral code of chivalry but also his doubts that it could be practiced effectively in the contemporary world. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Of the three texts of King Lear--the Quarto version printed in 1608, the Folio edition of 1623, and the modern composite of these two early texts--it has been assumed that both the Quarto and Folio versions arc distortions of an unblemished original" now lost and that only the modern text accurately approaches Shakespeare's lost original manuscript. Steven Urkowitz argues to the contrary that the Quarto and Folio are simply different stages of Shakespear's writing--an early draft and a final revision--and that they reveal much about his process of composition. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Eugene Goodheart's remarkably compact and penetrating analysis examines the skeptic disposition that has informed advanced literary discourse over the past generation. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Although some of the most distinguished German novels written since about 1770 are generally considered to be Bildungsromane, the term Bildungsroman is all too frequently used in English without an awareness of the tradition from which it arose. Professor Swales concentrates on the roles of plot, characterization, and narrative commentary in novels by Wieland, Goethe, Stifter, Keller, Mann, and Hesse. By pointing out that the goal in each work is both elusive and problematic, he suggests a previously unsuspected ironic intent. His analysis adds to our awareness of the potentialities inherent in the novel. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

We are often told that Shakespeare is our contemporary, yet we insist just as often on the Elizabethan quality of his work as it reflects a culture remote from our own. Beginning with this paradox, Howard Felperin explores the question of modernity in literature. He directs his attention toward several older poets and examines Shakespeare in particular to show how literary modernity depends, not on chronological considerations, but on the process of mimesis, or imitation, that art has traditionally claimed for itself. In analyzing Shakespeare's major tragedies, Professor Felperin notes that each carries within it a model of its dramatic prototypes, and therefore requires a conservative response from its interpreters. In the interest of being truer to life than its model, however, each play departs from that model and so requires a Romantic or modernist response as well. The author contends that Shakespeare's meaning arises from this ambivalent relation to the forms of the past. Originally published in 1978.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Jerome Mazzaro examines Dante's Vita Nuova as an artistic correlative to what Dante conceived as an image of himself. Specifically, he explores the structure of the work in relation to medieval views of memory, self, music, form, and interpretation, and against the facts of Dante's life and culture as we have come to know them. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

A poet's tradition provides him with a sense of community that may be regarded as a necessary condition for poetry. Jenijoy La Belle, who studied with Roethke, here describes the cultural tradition that he defined and created for himself. In so doing, she demonstrates how an understanding of Roethke's sources and the influences on his work is essential for its interpretation. The author considers the sources of Roethke's poetry and the influence on him of a wide circle of poets including T. S. Eliot, Yeats, Whitman, Wordsworth, Smart, Donne, Sir John Davies, and Dante. In addition, she traces the changes in Roethke's response to his literary past as he moves from his early lyrics to his final sequences. His imitation of selected poets began as a conscious effort but later became a basic component of his imaginative faculties, encompassing an historical attitude and a psychological state. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press.These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Why, during the last two hundred years, when critical achievement in the field of tragedy has been outstanding, has there been little creative practice? David Lenson examines the work of various writers not ordinarily placed in the tragic tradition--among them, Kleist, Goethe, Melville, Yeats, and Faulkner--and suggests that the tradition of tragedy does continue in genres other than drama, that is, in the novel and even in lyric poetry. The notion of tragedy's migration from one genre to others indicates, however, rather sweeping modifications in the theory of tragedy. Achilles' Choice proposes a structural model for tragic criticism that synthesizes the almost scientific theories predominant since World War II with the irrationalist theories they replaced. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions.The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book-length treatment of Gyorgy Lukacs' major achievement, his Marxist aesthetic theories. Working from the thirty-one volumes of Lukacs' works and twelve separately published essays, speeches, and interviews, Bela Kiralyfalvi provides a full and systematic analysis for English-speaking readers. Following an introductory chapter on Lukacs' philosophical development, the book concentrates on the coherent Marxist aesthetics that became the basis for his mature literary criticism. The study includes an examination of Lukacs' Marxist philosophical premises; his theory of the origin of art and the relationship of art to life, science, and religion; and his theory of artistic reflection and realism. Later chapters treat the concepts of type and totality in Lukacs' category of specialty, the distinctions between allegory and symbolism in his theory of the language of art, and Lukacs' understanding of aesthetic effect and form and content in art. There is a separate chapter on Lukacs' dramatic theory. This lucid and readable account of Lukacs' aesthetic theories will be of special interest to students of literature, aesthetics, and drama.In addition, it will be appreciated by those generally concerned with Marxist theory. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In applying the standards of modern literary criticism to medieval Arabic literature, Andras Hamori concentrates on those aspects of the literature that appear most alien to modern Western taste: the limitation of themes, the sedimentation with conventions, and the use of elusive patterns of composition. The first part of the book approaches Arabic literature from the historical point of view, concentrating on the transformations in poetic genres and poetic attitudes towards time and society in the literature between the sixth and the tenth centuries. The problems of poetic technique are then discussed, with special emphasis on poetic unity and the use of conventions. The third part of the book deals with methods of composition in prose through an examination of the orders and disorders in two tales from the Arabian Nights. Originally published in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions.The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.