This work is an investigation of why and how science has so powerfully shaped the way we understand ourselves, our behaviour towards others and our place in the world. Moral philosopher Mary Midgely shows how the roots of the problem lie in the fragmented, atom-like picture of ourselves we inherited from the 17th century. Breaking the world up into small parts and observing them in isolation may work in science, but she clearly spells out how this kind of approach can be disastrous when turned towards understanding ourselves, our interaction with the environment and our interaction with other...

For the past four decades Frank Kermode, critic and writer, has steadily established himself as one of the most brilliant minds of his generation. Author and editor of over forty books, his prodigious output includes some of the best literary criticism to be published. Questioning the public's harsh perception of 'the artist', Kermode at the same time gently pokes fun at artists' own, often inflated, self-image. He identifies what has become one of the defining characteristics of the Romantic tradition - the artist in isolation and the emerging power of the imagination. The ingeniousness of...

This text reveals the prescience of Adorno's writings. Haunted by the ugly side of American culture industries, Adorno used the different angles provided by each of the three essays in this volume to showcase the dangers inherent in modern obsessions with consumption. He engages with some of his most enduring themes in this collection, focusing on the irrational in mass culture - from astrology to new age cults, from anti-semitism to the power of neo-fascist propaganda. He points out that the modern state and market forces serve the interest of capital in its basic form.

In this classic work David Bohm, writing clearly and without technical jargon, develops a theory of quantum physics which treats the totality of existence as an unbroken whole.

Originally published in 1895, this outstanding collection of Irish verse was part of Yeats' campaign to establish a tradition of Irish poetry fit for the dawn of a new age in Ireland's history.

William Blake is a poet without parallel. He remains a source of wisdom and inspiration to countless individuals throughout the world. Whether familiar with Blake's work or not, the reader is here presented with a gripping and enlightening encounter with the words and visions of this master of the imagination. The selection was commissioned in 1905 by the firm of George Routledge from W.B. Yeats, who had previously been one of the pioneer editors of Blake's prophetic books. Yeats, one of the few poets whose work could be compared with that of Blake, prepared a unique selection of his poetic...

Philosophers have traditionally concentrated on the qualities that make human beings different from other species. In Beast and Man Mary Midgley stresses continuities. What makes people tick? Largely, she asserts, the same things as animals. She tells us humans are rather more like other animals than we previously allowed ourselves to believe, and reminds us just how primitive we are in comparison to the sophistication of many animals.

A work of technical skill as well as literary merit, Structuralist Poetics was awarded the 1975 James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association. It was during the writing of this book that Culler developed his now famous and complex theory of poetics and narrative, which he makes clear within these pages. The book itself combines a survey of structuralist literary criticism with a discussion about how English and American criticism might benefit from its lessons. Now reissued as a Routledge Classic with a new introduction from the author, Structuralist Poetics remains an...

Herbert Read was a maverick character in the cultural life of the 20th century. A radical leader of the avant garde in the 1930s and an anarchist revolutionary during the war years, by the time of his death in 1968 he had become a key figure at the heart of the British cultural establishment.

The Language of Fiction was the first book of criticism by the novelist David Lodge. In it he established a fresh approach to the appreciation of literature that focuses the reader's attention on the significance of language. This edition has a new foreword from David Lodge and includes in its entirety the comprehensive afterword from the 1984 edition.