To be fair, Ellmann does have some distinct advantages. For starters, there's his deep mastery of the Irish milieu--demonstrated not only in this volume but in his books on Yeats and Wilde. He's also an admirable stylist himself--graceful, witty, and happily unintimidated by his brilliant subjects. But in addition, Ellmann seems to have an uncanny grasp on Joyce's personality: his reverence for the Irishman's literary accomplishment is always balanced by a kind of bemused affection for his faults. Whether Joyce is putting the finishing touches on Ulysses, falling down drunk in the streets of Trieste, or talking dirty to his future wife via the postal service, Ellmann's account always shows us a genius and a human being--a daunting enough task for a fiction writer, let alone the poor, fact-fettered biographer. Richard Ellmann has revised and expanded his definitive work on Joyce's life to include newly discovered primary material, including details of a failed love affair, a limerick about Samuel Beckett, a dream notebook, previously unknown letters, and much more.

    An essay in poetic and philosophic criticism that bears mainly on the Russian masters, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky deals also with larger themes: the epic tradition extending from Homer to Tolstoy; the continuity of a "tragic world view" from Oedipus Rex to King Lear and The Brothers Karamazov; the contrasts between the epic and dramatic modes, between irreconcilably opposed views of God and of history."A must for the teacher, student, and intellectually serious reader."—Kirkus Reviews"This is a book that provides new and stimulating insight into the literary masterpieces and thought of the great Russian novelists. Moreover, in this work Steiner shows a great depth and breadth of literary knowledge and criticism that is not limited alone to the Russian writers under discussion but to writers of all genres and all literary periods."—Journal of Religion"His is a work of personal criticism, often ingenious, always deeply felt."—The New York Times"Brilliant, provocative, full of insights, this classic study still stands alone and unchallenged in modern criticism as a lucid and erudite study of the contrasting genius of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Steiner's book is a must for the student, scholar, or general reader who wishes to approach the Russian giants in their full literary and philosophical ambience."—Robert L. Jackson

    Appreciating the danger Shakespeare faced in writing at a time of major religious intolerance, this fresh examination demonstrates how subtly his plays allegorically explore aspects of the perennial philosophy. In doing so, it argues, Shakespeare raises the fundamental question of ethics. Both thought provoking and persuasive, this book also contrasts Hamlet with Measure for Measure and Othello with The Winter’s Tale in order to expose the dilemmas that confront its heroes.

    In punishment, Zeus chained him to a rock, where an eagle clawed unceasingly at his liver, until Herakles freed him. For the Greeks, the myth of Prometheus's release reflected a primordial law of existence and the fate of humankind. Carl Kerenyi examines the story of Prometheus and the very process of mythmaking as a reflection of the archetypal function and seeks to discover how this primitive tale was invested with a universal fatality, first in the Greek imagination, and then in the Western tradition of Romantic poetry. Kerenyi traces the evolving myth from Hesiod and Aeschylus, and in its epic treatment by Goethe and Shelly; he moves on to consider the myth from the perspective of Jungian psychology, as the archetype of human daring signifying the transformation of suffering into the mystery of the sacrifice.

    

    Professor Bowers advances to the edge of this gulf and says several forceful things across it; they turn out to be important and interesting, though occasionally scathing. The first chapter reminds us that the literary critic can only criticise with confidence when the textual critic has established what the author wrote; Professor Bowers indicates how very much has yet to be done. The second chapter takes a particular case, Walt Whitman's copy' for the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, and shows how the bibliographer can, by ingenious but rigorous deduction, give an insight into the growth of an author's conception of the nature and aim of his work. The other two lectures, on Shakespeare and other early dramatic texts, will show non-specialists the striking advances in editorial technique, and the growth of standards of scholarship in these studies.

    The author states that "this book is an argument", ...the reader is certain to find the unique approach to symbolist literature fascinating and the study carried out with scholarship, clarity and wit

    During that time he held thirty-seven conferences and answered two thousand questions on a wide range of concerns, from exegetic problems in his novels to the role of writer in modern society. Almost every word was recorded on tape, and the result is the classic Faulkner in the University, originally published in 1959 and now available for the first time a paperback edition.The material collected here offers testimony to some fascinating exchanges between the author and his public and makes up one of the few sourcebooks available on Faulkner's personal views.

    Light, his account of this movement, which transformed Urdu literature, contains many fascinating portraits of the leading writers of the time--Tagore, Premchand, andFaiz.