Best of
Criticism

1988

Six Memos For The Next Millennium


Italo Calvino - 1988
    Here is his legacy to us: the universal values he pinpoints become the watchwords for our appreciation of Calvino himself.What should be cherished in literature? Calvino devotes one lecture, or memo to the reader, to each of five indispensable qualities: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity. A sixth lecture, on consistency, was never committed to paper, and we are left only to ponder the possibilities. With this book, he gives us the most eloquent defense of literature written in the twentieth century as a fitting gift for the next millennium.

Harlan Ellison's Watching


Harlan Ellison - 1988
    In this first collection of Harlan Ellison's cinema criticism (with expanded, never-before-collected articles as well as an essay written especially for this volume) come from the darkened interiors of a thousand movie houses where this most peculiar of all Observers of the Passing Scene has spent much of his life. The view is guaranteed to make you grind your teeth in anger, nod your head in blessed agreement, and open your eyes in a manner of judging films that is definitely not plebeian. Harlan Ellison's love affair with movies is obvious. As an essayist, he has no equal; as a film critic he has no friends. Take care.

Cult Movies 3: 50 More of the Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird, and the Wonderful


Danny Peary - 1988
    An invaluable reference source.

Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment


Harold Bloom - 1988
    Svidrigailov simply is the most memorable figure in the book, obscuring Raskolnikov, who after all is the protagonist, a hero-villain, and a kind of surrogate for Dostoevsky himself.

Northrop Frye on Shakespeare


Northrop Frye - 1988
    Schoenbaum, New York Times Book Review“The most accessible and sheerly enjoyable of [Frye’s] books….The effect is that of listening to a fluent, genial conversationalist who loves Shakespeare and unabashedly celebrates him in that high aspect of criticism well called ‘appreciation.’”—Edmund Fuller, Wall Street Journal“A boon to both Shakespearean scholars and readers dipping into the Bard’s work for the first time. … Written with verve, erudition and more-than-occasional humor, this ‘summing-up’ of 50 years of scholarship will be read with pleasure, profit and gratitude by drama lovers for years to come.”—Kirkus ReviewsNorthrop Frye, professor of English, has been on the faculty of the University of Toronto for almost fifty years.  He is the author of numerous books, including the seminal work Anatomy of Criticism

Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema


David Bordwell - 1988
    Combining biographical information with discussions of the films' aesthetic strategies and cultural significance, David Bordwell questions the popular image of Ozu as the traditional Japanese artisan and examines the aesthetic nature and functions of his cinema.

Zanzibar to Timbuktu


Theodore Dalrymple - 1988
    Avoiding planes, his journey took him by bus, lorry, train, boat and canoe. Along the way he encountered corruption, poverty and oppression as well as pragmatic and cheerful travelling companions and the result is this humorous, beautifully-written and sharply-observed travelogue.Theodore Dalrymple is the author of many books including: 'If Symptoms Persist', 'Second Opinion' and 'The Policeman and the Brothel'.

Caldecott and Co.: Notes on Books and Pictures


Maurice Sendak - 1988
    "This anthology of essays on writing and illustrating for children reveals a formidable intelligence and a remarkable degree of empathy with fellow toilers in the field."--Publisher's Weekly

A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel


Steven Weisenburger - 1988
    The book also analyzes Pynchon's use of language and dialect.

Shakespeare's Metrical Art


George Thaddeus Wright - 1988
    George T. Wright offers a detailed survey of Shakespeare's brilliantly varied metrical keyboard and shows how it augments the expressiveness of his characters' stage language.

Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville


David S. Reynolds - 1988
    David Reynolds reveals how these authors broadly assimilated the themes and images of popular culture. Their classic works--among them Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, Leaves of Grass, Walden, and the tales of Poe--are given strikingly original reading when viewed against the rich, often startling background of long neglected popular writings of the time. Reynolds also explores a whole lost world of sensational literature, including grisly novels, openly sold on the street, that combined intense violence with explicit eroticism. He demonstrates as well how common concerns with issues of religion, slavery, and workers' (as well as women's) rights resonate in the major writings.

George Orwell's 1984 (Bloom's Guides)


Harold Bloom - 1988
    - Comprehensive reading and study guides for the world's most important literary masterpieces- A selection of critical excerpts provide a scholarly overview of each work- "The Story Behind the Story" places the work in a historical perspective and discusses it legacy- Each book includes a biographical sketch of the author, a descriptive list of characters, an extensive summary and analysis, and an annotated bibliography

Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel


Claudia L. Johnson - 1988
    "The best (and the best written) book about Austen that has appeared in the last three decades."—Nina Auerbach, Journal of English and Germanic Philology"By looking at the ways in which Austen domesticates the gothic in Northanger Abbey, examines the conventions of male inheritance and its negative impact on attempts to define the family as a site of care and generosity in Sense and Sensibility, makes claims for the desirability of 'personal happiness as a liberating moral category' in Pride and Prejudice, validates the rights of female authority in Emma, and stresses the benefits of female independence in Persuasion, Johnson offers an original and persuasive reassessment of Jane Austen's thought."—Kate Fullbrook, Times Higher Education Supplement

Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art


James Clifford - 1988
    Analyzing cultural practices such as anthropology, travel writing, collecting, and museum displays of tribal art, James Clifford shows authoritative accounts of other ways of life to be contingent fictions, now actively contested in post-colonial contexts. His critique raises questions of global significance: Who has the authority to speak for any group's identity and authenticity? What are the essential elements and boundaries of a culture? How do self and "the other" clash in the encounters of ethnography, travel, and modern interethnic relations?In chapters devoted to the history of anthropology, Clifford discusses the work of Malinowski, Mead, Griaule, L�vi-Strauss, Turner, Geertz, and other influential scholars. He also explores the affinity of ethnography with avant-garde art and writing, recovering a subversive, self-reflexive cultural criticism. The surrealists' encounters with Paris or New York, the work of Georges Bataille and Michel Leiris in the Coll�ge de Sociologie, and the hybrid constructions of recent tribal artists offer provocative ethnographic examples that challenge familiar notions of difference and identity. In an emerging global modernity, the exotic is unexpectedly nearby, the familiar strangely distanced.

The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses


Harry Blamires - 1988
    Harry Blamires helps readers to negotiate their way through this formidable, remarkable novel and gain an understanding of it which, without help, it might have take several readings to achieve. The New Bloomsday Book is a crystal clear, page-by-page, line-by-line running commentary on the plot of Ulysses which illuminates symbolic themes and structures along the way. It is a highly accessible, indispensible guide for anyone reading Joyce's masterpiece for the first time.

Asimov's Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan


Isaac Asimov - 1988
    Including such perennial favorites as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado, the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan have endured and increased in popularity to this day. Now renowned author and long-time G & S fan Isaac Asimov brings his masterful wit and understanding to a complete annotation of these classic works.Lucid, authoritative, and thoroughly entertaining, ASIMOV'S ANNOTATED GILBERT & SULLIVAN offers a fresh and illuminating interpretation of the artists' fourteen famous operettas. Here, Dr. Asimov skillfully guides the reader through every word, reference, and innuendo that needs clarification. With enthusiasm and insight, he identifies all the major characters, describes specific settings, and brings to light pertinent background information, such as when and where each play opened, how it was received by critics and audiences at the time, how its title was derived, and more.Like Asimov's Annotated Don Juan, Asimov's Annotated Paradise Lost, and Familiar Poems Annotated, this meticulously detailed volume provides a wealth of information essential for a full appreciation of the timeless works. Beautifully illustrated and written in the good doctor's inimitable style, ASIMOV'S ANNOTATED GILBERT & SULLIVAN at last makes the endearing charm of the world's favorite operettas accessible to armchair music lovers and seasoned theater aficionados alike.(Description from inside the book jacket flaps.)

William Shakespeare's Sonnets


Harold Bloom - 1988
    -- Presents the most important 20th-century criticism on major works from The Odyssey through modern literature-- The critical essays reflect a variety of schools of criticism-- Contains critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index

The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism


Henry Louis Gates Jr. - 1988
    Examining the ancient poetry and myths found in African, Latin American, and Caribbean culture, and particularly the Yoruba trickster figure of Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey whose myths help articulate the black tradition's theory of its literature, Gates uncovers a unique system for interpretation and a powerful vernacular tradition that black slaves brought with them to the New World. His critical approach relies heavily on the Signifying Monkey--perhaps the most popular figure in African-American folklore--and signification and Signifyin(g). Exploring signification in black American life and literature by analyzing the transmission and revision of various signifying figures, Gates provides an extended analysis of what he calls the Talking Book, a central trope in early slave narratives that virtually defines the tradition of black American letters. Gates uses this critical framework to examine several major works of African-American literature--including Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, and Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo--revealing how these works signify on the black tradition and on each other. The second volume in an enterprising trilogy on African-American literature, The Signifying Monkey--which expands the arguments of Figures in Black--makes an important contribution to literary theory, African-American literature, folklore, and literary history.

Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis


Kristin Thompson - 1988
    Here Kristin Thompson "defamiliarizes" the reader with eleven different films. Developing the technique formulated in her Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible (Princeton, 1981), she clearly demonstrates the flexibility of the neoformalist approach. She argues that critics often use cut-and-dried methods and choose films that easily fit those methods. Neoformalism, on the other hand, encourages the critic to deal with each film differently and to modify his or her analytical assumptions continually.Thompson's analyses are thus refreshingly varied and revealing, ranging from an ordinary Hollywood film, Terror by Night, to such masterpieces as Late Spring and Lancelot du Lac. She proposes a formal historical way of dealing with realism, using Bicycle Thieves and The Rules of the Game as examples. Stage Fright and Laura provide cases in which the classical cinema defamiliarizes its own conventions by playing with audience expectations. Other chapters deal with Tati's Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot and Play Time and Godard's Tout va bien and Sauve qui peut (la vie).Although neoformalist analysis is a rigorous, distinctive approach, it avoids extensive specialized vocabulary and esoteric concepts: the essays here can be read separately by those interested in the individual films. The book's overall purpose, however, goes beyond making these particular films more accessible and intriguing to propose new ways of looking at cinema as a whole.

Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England


Stephen Greenblatt - 1988
    Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England is a sustained and powerful exemplification of this innovative method, offering a new way of understanding the power of Shakespeare's achievement and, beyond this, an original analysis of cultural process.

Schumann on Music: A Selection from the Writings


Robert Schumann - 1988
    The articles are arranged in chronological order, with ample annotation, demonstrating not only Schumann's development as a writer and critic but also the evolution of music in Europe during a decisive decade.In addition to such major set pieces as "Florestan's Shrovetide Oration," the essays on Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and Schubert's Symphony in C Major, and the imaginative and literate "The Editor's Ball," this volume offers discerning observations on Mendelssohn, Chopin, Beethoven, Liszt, Cherubini, and other giants. Also included are critical considerations of an ensemble of minor masters: Sphor, Hiller, Moscheles, Hummel, and Gade, among others. The result is a rich and representative picture of musical life in the mid-19th century.Schumann's criticism has long been famous for its perceptiveness and literary style. Those qualities are in ample evidence in this treasury of his finest critical writings, now available to every music lover in this inexpensive, high-quality edition.

T. S. Eliot And Prejudice


Christopher Ricks - 1988
    Eliot's poetry in which the author considers the works against a background of the social and political problems of prejudice. Eliot was writing at a time of great contradiction in thought; never has the accusation of prejudice been stronger, and yet never has there been so wide an agreement that no understanding of anything is possible without preconceptions. Christopher Ricks is author of "Milton's Grand Style", "Tennyson", "Keats and Embarrassment" and "The Force of Poetry".

Mystifying Movies: Fads & Fallacies In Contemporary Film Theory


Noël Carroll - 1988
    

Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels: in English Language Selection, 1946-1987


David Pringle - 1988
    Following the format of his earlier collection, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (LJ 7/86), Pringle presents his selections in chronological order and includes a synopsis of the story, a discussion of the author's overall contribution to fantasy literature, critical commentary on the title's significance, and a brief publishing history. An introductory essay tackles the difficulty of defining fantasy, while a "Brief Bibliography" directs readers to other discussions of the genre. By no means a definitive subject guide, this entertaining volume should serve as a solid introduction to the elusive field of imaginative literature. Recommended for most libraries.

Comedy of Redemption: Christian Faith and Comic Vision in Four American Novelists


Ralph C. Wood - 1988
    Balancing theology with literary criticism, this work explores the comic vision in the works of four American novelists, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, John Updike and Peter De Vries.

The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 2: Arrogant Purpose, 1945-1949


Clement Greenberg - 1988
    On radio and in print, Greenberg was the voice of "the new American painting," and a central figure in the postwar cultural history of the United States.Greenberg first established his reputation writing for the Partisan Review, which he joined as an editor in 1940. He became art critic for the Nation in 1942, and was associate editor of Commentary from 1945 until 1957. His seminal essay, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" set the terms for the ongoing debate about the relationship of modern high art to popular culture. Though many of his ideas have been challenged, Greenberg has influenced generations of critics, historians, and artists, and he remains influential to this day.

The Triumph of Irony in the Book of Judges


Lillian R Klein - 1988
    Klein extrapolates the theme of irony in the book of Judges, seeking to prove that it is the main structural element. She points out how this literary device adds to the overall meaning and tone of the book, and what it reveals about the culture of the time. Chronologically divided into sections, Klein explores the narrative and commentates on the literary properties throughout-plot, character development, and resolution, as well as the main theme of irony.

Feminism and Foucault: Violence, Poverty, and Prostitution


Irene Diamond - 1988
    This book fosters an unprecedented dialogue between Foucault and the fertile ground of contemporary feminism and explores the many ways these disparate approaches to cultural analysis converge and interact.

The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 1: Perceptions and Judgments, 1939-1944


Clement Greenberg - 1988
    On radio and in print, Greenberg was the voice of "the new American painting," and a central figure in the postwar cultural history of the United States.Greenberg first established his reputation writing for the Partisan Review, which he joined as an editor in 1940. He became art critic for the Nation in 1942, and was associate editor of Commentary from 1945 until 1957. His seminal essay, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" set the terms for the ongoing debate about the relationship of modern high art to popular culture. Though many of his ideas have been challenged, Greenberg has influenced generations of critics, historians, and artists, and he remains influential to this day.

Original Intent and the Framers' Constitution


Leonard W. Levy - 1988
    The controversy has flared anew in our own time as a facet of the battle between conservatives and liberals. In Original Intent and the Framers' Constitution, the distinguished constitutional scholar Leonard Levy cuts through the Gordian Knot of claim and counterclaim with an argument that is clear, logical, and compelling. Rejecting the views of both left and right, he evaluates the doctrine of "original intent" by examining the sources of constitutional law and landmark cases. Finally, he finds no evidence for grounding the law in original intent. Judicial activism-the constant reinterpretation of the Constitution-he sees as inevitable.

Sowing the Body: Psychoanalysis and Ancient Representations of Women


Page duBois - 1988
    

Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism C.1100--C.1375: The Commentary-Tradition


David John Wallace - 1988
    Fully annotated with notes and introductions, the selections encompass a wide range of topics--including authorship, ethics, symbolism, biography, poetics, allegory, and semiotics--and represent many important writers--including Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Grosseteste, Abelard, and Peter Lombard.

The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature


James David Hart - 1988
    Hart's Oxford Companion to American Literature has offered a matchless guided tour through American literary culture, both past and present. Hart now presents the first abridgement of the Companion in a paperback edition, making the entries of thegreatest general interest from the original volume available to a much wider audience. Compact and affordable, The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature contains over 2,000 entries, including brief biographies of important authors, plot summaries of individual works, descriptions of important literary movements, and a wealth of information on other aspects of Americanliterary life and history from the Colonial period to the modern era. It devotes approximately 325 of the biographical entries to contemporary writers, introducing such newcomers to the Companion as William Kennedy, Grace Paley, and Raymond Carver. The more specialized and esoteric entries from theoriginal have been omitted. Like its predecessor, The Concise Oxford Companion contains a thorough system of cross references to guide the reader to related information on a given topic, as well as a chronological Index outlining significant events in the literary and social history of the United States.

Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. VIII, #1, Arno Schmidt


John O'Brien - 1988
    P. Ott, "Guest Editor's Note"Klaus T. Hofmann, "A Guest in the Cave of Books: A Conversation in Arno Schmidt's Library on 17 October 1977"John E. Woods, "On Translating the Unconventional Prose of Arno Schmidt"Arno Schmidt, "from A Heart of Stone: Historical Novel from the Year 1954"Arno Schmidt, "Great Cain"Arno Schmidt, "Tall Grete"Arno Schmidt, "Calculations (I-III)"Robert Weninger, "Why Were They Saying Such Terrible Things About Arno Schmidt?"Keith Bullivant, "Arno Schmidt: The German Context"Anthony Phelan, "'Bestandige Schnoddrigkeiten' Arno Schmidt and the Human Voice"Ulrich Goerdten, "Narrative Technique in the Kuhe in Halbtrauer Stories"Ernst-Dieter Steinwender, "'And back. And forth': Arno Schmidt's Story 'Great Cain' as a Dream Text"Ernst Krawehl, "Some Preliminary Remarks Concerning the Presentation of Page 636 of Zettels Traum"Horst Denkler, "'Pleasurable=Profitable Playfulness': On the Relationship between the Work of Art and the Art of Reading in the Late Works of Arno Schmidt"Kurt Jauslin, "Olmer's Method: Producing the 'EG'—Figures of the Readymade Unconscious in Evening Edged in Gold"Susanne Kretzer, "Mystifictional Traces"Julian Rios, "Moments from the Work of a Faun: Basic Schmidt for Foreigners"David Hayman, "Schmidt/Joyce: A Case of Possession"Stefan Gradmann, "Schmidt/Joyce: Anatomy of a Misunderstanding"Thomas S. Hansen, "Arno Schmidt's Reception of Edgar Allan Poe: Or, The Domain of Arn(o)heim"F. P. Ott, "Arno Schmidt: A Select Bibliography"

The Social Construction of American Realism


Amy Kaplan - 1988
    She reads realistic narrative as a symbolic act of imagining and controlling the social upheavals of early modern capitalism, particularly class conflict and the development of mass culture. Brilliant analyses of works by Howells, Wharton, and Dreiser illuminate the narrative process by which realism constructs a social world of conflict and change. "[Kaplan] offers some enthralling readings of major novels by Howells, Wharton, and Dreiser. It is a book which should be read by anyone interested in the American novel."—Tony Tanner, Modern Language Review"Kaplan has made an important contribution to our understanding of American realism. This is a book that deserves wide attention."—June Howard, American Literature