When Samuel Beckett’s work first appeared, it was routinely described, by Adorno amongst others, as a clear example of European high culture. However, this judgement ignored an aspect of Beckett’s work and its reception that is, arguably, not yet fully understood; the intimate relation between his work and popular culture. Beckett used popular cultural forms; but popular culture has also found a place both for the work and for the man. This collection of essays examines how popular cultura...

Originally published in 1981. This book looks at the autobiographical work of nine twentieth-century writers – Henry Adams, Henry James, W. B. Yeats, Boris Pasternak, Leiris, Jean-Paul Sartre, Vladimir Nabokov, Henry Green and Adrian Stokes. The author argues that often the writer has shaped his life through his craft, coming to understand the pattern of his own existence through the formalism of language. In each case the writer stamps his personality on the work by mean of a distinctive ...

The world fame of Samuel Beckett is due to a combination of high academic esteem and immense popularity. An innovator in prose fiction to rival Joyce, his plays have been the most influential in modern theatre history. As an author in both English and French and a writer for the page and the stage, Beckett has been the focus for specialist treatment in each of his many guises, but there have been few attempts to provide a conspectus view. This book, first published in 1994, provides thirte...

The books in this bite-sized new series contain no complicated techniques or tricky materials, making them ideal for the busy, the time-pressured or the merely curious. Existentialism Made Easy is a short, simple and to-the-point guide to existentialism. In just 96 pages, the reader will discover all the key ideas, from altruism to utilitarianism. Ideal for the busy, the time-pressured or the merely curious, Existentialism Made Easy is a quick, no-effort way to break into this fascinating ...

This study argues against vague interpretations of fantasy as mere escapism and seeks to define it as a distinct kind of narrative. A general theoretical section introduces recent work on fantasy, notably Tzventan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (1973). Dr Jackson, however, extends Todorov's ideas to include aspects of psychoanalytical theory. Seeing fantasy as primarily an expression of unconscious drives, she stresses the importance of the writings of F...

Beauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety of ways. Yet it is never viewed with indifference. In this Very Short Introduction the renowned philosopher Roger Scruton explores the concept of beauty, asking what makes an object - either in art, in nature, or the human form - beautiful, and examining how we can compare differing judgements of beauty when it is evident all around...

In this characteristically concise, witty, and lucid book, Terry Eagleton turns his attention to the questions we should ask about literature, but rarely do. What is literature? Can we even speak of "literature" at all? What do different literary theories tell us about what texts mean and do? In throwing new light on these and other questions he has raised in previous best-sellers, Eagleton offers a new theory of what we mean by literature. He also shows what it is that a great ...

The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was almost wholly neglected during his sane life, which came to an abrupt end in 1889. Since then he has been appropriated as an icon by an astonishingly diverse spectrum of people, whose interpretations of his thought range from the highly irrational to the firmly analytical. Thus Spoke Zarathustra introduced the 'superman' and The Twilight of the Idols developed the 'Will to Power' concept; these term, together with 'Sklavenmoral' and 'He...

Archaeologies of Presence is a brilliant exploration of how the performance of presence can be understood through the relationships between performance theory and archaeological thinking. Drawing together carefully commissioned contributions by leading international scholars and artists, this radical new work poses a number of essential questions:What are the principle signifiers of theatrical presence?How is presence achieved through th...

What is a narrative? What is narrative fiction? How does it differ from other kinds of narrative? What featuers turn a discourse into a narrative text? Now widely acknowledged as one of the most significant volumes in its field, Narrative Fiction turns its attention to these and other questions.In contrast to many other studies, Narrative Fiction is organized arround issues - such as events, time, focalization, characterization, narration, the text and its reading...

The first edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction transformed the criticism of fiction and soon became a classic in the field. One of the most widely used texts in fiction courses, it is a standard reference point in advanced discussions of how fictional form works, how authors make novels accessible, and how readers recreate texts, and its concepts and terms—such as "the implied author," "the postulated reader," and "the unreliable narrator"—have become part of the standard critical l...

Understand Existentialism breaks down a complex mode of thought into more manageable sections, enabling you to get to grips with the key concepts within the movement. Chart the origins and development of existentialism in a variety of disciplines and learn about significant thinkers from Sartre and De Beauvoir to Beckett and Camus. Whether you are a newcomer or more experienced student, this book will enhance your understanding of a brand of philosophy designed to give meaning and directio...