Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> General

Gay and lesbian themes in Latin American literature have been largely ignored. This reference fills this gap by providing more than a hundred alphabetically arranged entries for Latin American authors who have treated gay or lesbian material in their works. Each entry explores the significance of gay and lesbian themes in a particular author's writings and closes with a bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

The figures included have a professed gay identity, or have written on gay or lesbian themes in either a positive or negative way, or have authored works in which a gay...

Albert provides a survey of the impact of jazz on both American and foreign fiction, along with an annotated listing of almost 400 short stories, novels, plays, and jazz fiction criticism. Access is augmented by an index of novels, plays, and short stories and by a general index.

Albert examines the strong impact jazz and the blues have had on fiction. The annotated listing of 400 novels, short stories, and jazz fiction criticism will serve as a resource for those doing research in both music and literature, as well as serving as a reading guide for jazz devotees who are looking for...

While literary utopias depict an ideal society and reflect an optimistic belief in the triumph of humanity and government, dystopias present a society marked by suffering caused by human and political evils. This book offers a detailed study of several literary dystopias and analyzes them as social criticism. The volume begins with a discussion of utopias, dystopias, and social criticism. By drawing upon the theories of Freud, Nietzsche, and others, Booker sets a firm theoretical foundation for the literary explorations that follow. The chapters that come next discuss Zamyatin's We,...

Dystopian literature is a potent vehicle for criticizing existing social conditions and political systems. While utopian literature portrays ideal worlds, dystopian literature depicts the flaws and failures of imaginative societies. Often these societies are related to utopias, and the dystopian writers have chosen to reveal shortcomings of those social systems previously considered ideal. This reference overviews dystopian theory and summarizes and analyzes numerous dystopian works.

By reviewing the critical thought of particular dystopian theorists, the beginning of the...

Oceania has a rich and growing literary tradition. The imaginative literature that emerged in the 1960s often reflected the forms and structures of European literature, though the ideas expressed were typically anticolonial. After three decades, the literature of Oceania has become much more complex, in terms of style as well as content; and authors write in a multiplicity of styles and voices. While the written literature of Oceania is continuously gaining more critical attention, questions about the imposition of European literary standards and values as a further extension of...

The comparison made between Prometheus and Faust occurs so frequently in modern scholarship as to seem commonplace. However, while each figure has been investigated separately, no recent full-length study has brought the two characters together and examined the association. The present volume explores the Prometheus myth from its preliterary origins through treatments in Greek by Hesiod, Aeschylus, Plato, and Lucian, as well as in Latin literature and Roman theatricals. The investigation continues into hitherto unexplored connections with the Greek figure and the magus and occult scientist...

Although best known for "The Thorn Birds," her blockbuster family saga set in her native Australia, Colleen McCullough is a versatile novelist who has written in a variety of genres. This is the first full-length examination of her work. It highlights her versatility and her refusal to be confined to any one genre or type of writing, even though that refusal has lost her part of the wide readership she gained with DEGREESIThe Thorn Birds DEGREESR. DeMarr discusses, analyzes, and evaluates each of McCullough's eight novels in turn, relates it to the genre to which it belongs, and compares...

Based on the author's discovery of a new folktale type, the female trickster, Jurich's book identifies and celebrates those female protagonists in folktales who use trickery to save themselves and others, to find new directions for their lives, and to declare their individual autonomies, especially in societies that diminish and oppress women. Through creative strategies depending on verbal facility, psychological acuity, and diplomatic know-how, these women tricksters better named trick"stars" uncover the absurdity, hypocrisy, and corruption in the larger patriarchal society. Through the...

As non-African writers have created images of Africa that suit their own needs, African writers have countered these images with African landscapes that emphasize the landmarks and horizons that are significant for Africans. In this volume, Loflin explores the importance of landscape description in African fiction, arguing that discussion of landscape can reveal the geographic, religious, political, and social boundaries of the text. In her analysis, Loflin examines themes of nationalism and ethnic identity, showing how the question of landscape is further complicated when writers in...

Zoe Akins was an artist who became successful as a Broadway playwright. For Akins, this was a hard earned title, which she achieved after years of false starts and near misses. She wrote over 40 plays, 18 of which appeared on the Broadway stage between 1919 and 1944. Also in her oeuvre are two novels, numerous short stories and essays, several film and television scripts, and two volumes of poetry. Akins constantly tried to balance her writing style so that it would suit her own moral code and simultaneously appeal to a paying audience. She was a woman in a field dominated by men, but she...

The 1990s have seen a renaissance in short fiction studies. Today's short story writers are testing the boundaries of short fiction through minimalist works; extended short story cycles; narrative nonfiction forms, such as histories, memoirs, and essays; and even stories created interactively with readers on the computer. Short story critics, in turn, are viewing the short story from the perspective of genre, history, cultural studies, and even cognitive science. This volume brings together the opinions, theories, and research of many of today's best-known short story writers, theorists,...

Afro-Cubanism is a movement in Caribbean arts and letters that stemmed from a rediscovery of the region's African heritage during the 1920s and to some extent paralleled the Harlem Renaissance in the United States. Thus the movement was not an isolated fad but the result of a long-standing tradition. Intended for both scholars of Latin American literature and specialists in ethnic studies, this book traces the development of Afro-Cubanism from its origins in medieval Spain to its highest expression in the 1930s. Each chapter offers a close reading of a major text that represents a moment...

Looking at the sociohistorical and sociocultural context, this study investigates examples of anorexia nervosa, a highly symbolic form of nonverbal discourse, in a selection of French novels spanning the period 1835-1889. In each of the novels, there is an unmistakable association between literal and figurative hunger, whereby the protagonists become human signs of their private, unconscious protest. They refuse food not because they are not hungry, but because they hunger too much for effectiveness and self-fulfillment in the face of a repressive society.

Each protagonist, when...

The final decades of the 20th century have seen an explosion of interest in multiculturalism. But multiculturalism is more than an awareness of the different cultures comprising contemporary societies. For centuries, people from around the world have come in contact with cultures other than their own, and their exposure to multiple cultures has fostered their creativity and ability to make lasting contributions to civilization. The effects of multiculturalism are especially apparent in literature, since writers tend to be particularly aware of their environments and record their...

The end of World War II led to increased interest in multicultural concerns and a flourishing of literary and artistic endeavors. It was also a time of decolonization and the emergence of new nations and cultures clamoring for recognition and respect. The political circumstances following World War II exposed many people to other cultures. This reference discusses the experiences of writers active since 1945 who were shaped by cultures other than their own.

Included are alphabetically arranged entries for more than 100 writers, including Chinua Achebe, W.H. Auden, Mircea Eliade, Jamaica...

Through narrative and rhetorical strategies that subvert genre and challenge the discourse of race and gender, black South African woman writer Bessie Head creates alternative healing spaces that empower and enoble the marginalized, provide potential for transcendence and self-creation, and render ineffective the power of language to subjugate. This book features new critical material on her life and works and explores the techniques she uses to inscribe an idealistic vision in response to the psychic fragmentation and rootlessness she experienced as an exile.

The traumatized characters...

Short stories have enjoyed a long and popular history, with many famous writers attempting the craft at some point or another. Here, Lee assembles a variety of writers who comment on the form itself and its many meanings and manifestations. Concentrating on the features and challenges of the short story, contributors from Amiri Baraka to Richard Ford and Jayne Anne Phillips to Janette Turner Hospital discuss their own writing, the writing of others, the short story form, gender, politics, and other issues concerning the writing of short fiction. Readers will come away with a fuller...

There has been a dramatic increase in the amount of narrative work published by Chicana and Latina authors in the past 5 to 10 years. Nonetheless, there has been little attempt to catalog this material. This reference provides convenient access to all forms of narrative written by Chicana and Latina authors from the early 1940s through 2002. In doing so, it helps users locate these works and surveys the growth of this vast body of literature.

The volume cites more than 2,750 short stories, novels, novel excerpts, and autobiographies written by some 600 Mexican American, Puerto...

Bioethical and medical issues are among the most important concerns facing society today. Yet many of these contemporary debates have been anticipated and addressed in literary works. Designed to meet the needs of high school students, as well as college students or those in the health care field, this reference defines and situates major bioethical and medical issues in accessible literature ranging from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) to Margaret Edson's Wit (1999). Included are discussions of such topics as cloning, bioterrorism, organ transplants, genetics, obesity and...

The 19th century novel typically examines social problems and values. Several novels of that period treat adulterous relationships; in doing so, they consider the attitude toward adultery in particular societies. Using the adulteress as an archetypal figure of the realist tradition as a constant, this book compares and discusses six novels of adultery from around the world to show how they reflect the standards and judgments of the nineteenth century. These ethical contexts are informed by diverse philosophical systems, including Christianity, naturalism, and nihilism.

Included are...