5 reviews
Franz Kafka: The Necessity of Form
In Stanley Corngold’s view, the themes and strategies of Kafka’s fiction are generated by a tension between his concern for writing and his growing sense of its arbitrary character. Analyzing Kafka’s work in light of "the necessity of form," which is also a merely formal necessity, Corngold uncovers the fundamental paradox of Kafka’s art and life. The first section of the book shows how Kafka’s rhetoric may be understood as the daring project of a man compelled to live his life as literature. In the central part of the book, Corngold reflects on the place of Kafka within the modern tradition, discussing such influential precursors of Cervantes, Flaubert, and Nietzsche, whose works display a comparable narrative disruption. Kafka’s distinctive narrative strategies, Corngold poin...
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs, Literature & Fiction, History & Criticism, Nonfiction, Politics & Social Sciences, Philosophy, Antiquarian & Rare Books, Criticism & Theory, History of Books
Size: 334 pages
Free eBook download for Kindle from 27 January 2021 onward PDT/PST
3 reviews
Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science
N. Katherine Hayles here investigates parallels between contemporary literature and critical theory and the science of chaos. She finds in both scientific and literary discourse new interpretations of chaos, which is seen no longer as disorder but as a locus of maximum information and complexity. She examines structures and themes of disorder in The Education of Henry Adams, Doris Lessing’s Golden Notebook, and works by Stanislaw Lem. Hayles shows how the writings of poststructuralist theorists including Barthes, Lyotard, Derrida, Serres, and de Man incorporate central features of chaos theory....
Genre: Literature & Fiction, History & Criticism, Nonfiction, Professional & Technical, Professional Science, Science & Math, Mathematics, Antiquarian & Rare Books, Criticism & Theory, History of Books
Size: 328 pages
Free eBook download for Kindle from 27 January 2021 onward PDT/PST
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Genre: Health, Fitness & Dieting, Psychology & Counseling, Literature & Fiction, History & Criticism, Nonfiction, Politics & Social Sciences, Philosophy, Professional & Technical, Professional Science, Science & Math, Antiquarian & Rare Books, Criticism & Theory, History of Books, Movements & Periods
Size: 263 pages
Free eBook download for Kindle from 27 January 2021 onward PDT/PST
In 1857, following the publication of Madame Bovary, Flaubert was charged with having committed an "outrage to public morality and religion." Dominick LaCapra, an intellectual historian with wide-ranging literary interests, here examines this remarkable trial. LaCapra draws on material from Flaubert’s correspondence, the work of literary critics, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s analysis of Flaubert. LaCapra maintains that Madame Bovary is at the intersection of the traditional and the modern novel, simultaneously invoking conventional expectations and subverting them....
Genre: History, Europe, Professional & Technical, Law, Literature & Fiction, History & Criticism, Nonfiction, Antiquarian & Rare Books, Criticism & Theory, History of Books
Size: 224 pages
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5 reviews
Nabokov: The Mystery of Literary Structures
Vladimir Nabokov described the literature course he taught at Cornell as "a kind of detective investigation of the mystery of literary structures." Leona Toker here pursues a similar investigation of the enigmatic structures of Nabokov's own fiction. According to Toker, most previous critics stressed either Nabokov’s concern with form or the humanistic side of his works, but rarely if ever the two together. In sensitive and revealing readings of ten novels, Toker demonstrates that the need to reconcile the human element with aesthetic or metaphysical pursuits is a constant theme of Nabokov’s and that the tension between technique and content is itself a key to his fiction. Written with verve and precision, Toker’s book begins with Pnin and follows the circular pattern that is one of ...
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs, Arts & Literature, Specific Groups, Literature & Fiction, History & Criticism, Nonfiction, Antiquarian & Rare Books, Criticism & Theory, History of Books, Movements & Periods
Size: 283 pages
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4 reviews
Living with Disfigurement in Early Medieval Europe (The New Middle Ages)
This book is open access under a CC-BY 4.0 license. This book examines social and medical responses to the disfigured face in early medieval Europe, arguing that the study of head and facial injuries can offer a new contribution to the history of early medieval medicine and culture, as well as exploring the language of violence and social interactions. Despite the prevalence of warfare and conflict in early medieval society, and a veritable industry of medieval historians studying it, there has in fact been very little attention paid to the subject of head wounds and facial damage in the course of war and/or punitive justice. The impact of acquired disfigurement —for the individual, and for her or his family and community—is barely registered, and only recently has there been any atte...
Genre: History, Europe, Historical Study, Literature & Fiction, History & Criticism, Professional & Technical, Medical eBooks, Nonfiction, Politics & Social Sciences, Politics & Government, Philosophy, Science & Math, Antiquarian & Rare Books, Criticism & Theory, History of Books, Movements & Periods
Size: 383 pages
Free eBook download for Kindle from 27 January 2021 onward PDT/PST
