The Sense of an Ending (1967) is a book which seeks to establish a connection between fiction, time and apocalyptic modes of thought. Frank Kermode (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Kermode) sees in the apocalyptic certain features which, he suggests, provide a useful analogy with the process of reading and writing fiction. The author tells us that in imagining an end […]
The Sense of An Ending by Frank Kermode Read More »
The language that would become English arrived in these islands in the fifth century with Germanic tribes as the Roman empire began collapsing. Bragg describes it in almost Darwinian terms, a “subtle and ruthless” survivor that defeated competing tongues over the next three centuries, refusing to marry with the indigenous Celtic language (which has left us
The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg Read More »
This book by Cleanth Brooks is a classic ‘must read’ study in the criticism of poetry for reasons adequately given here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_Wrought_Urn:_Studies_in_the_Structure_of_Poetry Check if this title is in stock at your local library by consulting the online catalogue here Home | South Lanarkshire Libraries (sllclibrary.co.uk) 324 pages in Mariner Books paperback edition. ISBN 978-0156957052
The Well Wrought Urn by Cleanth Brooks Read More »
Fiction and The Reading Public provoked fierce controversy when first published in 1932, and it has since come to be recognised as a classic in its field. In her fascinating study, Q D Leavis (http://mypages.surrey.ac.uk/eds1cj/qd-leavis-life-and-work.htm#lifeandwork) investigates what has happened to the public taste in the last three centuries and what effect this has had on both
Fiction and the Reading Public by Q.D. Leavis Read More »
In Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the melancholy Jaques declares: “All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women merely players.” This is a celebrated use of metaphor, a figure of speech in which one thing is used to describe another. As one of the central structural elements in human thought it is the habit,
Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson Read More »
George Steiner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Steiner) has enjoyed a spectacular academic career, teaching in many prestigious institutions and writing voluminously. He is a comparative literary critic and polymath. This is an anthology of his writings between 1978-1996. Topics covered are the Hebrew Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, tragedy, Simone Weil, Saint-Simone, Peguy, Husserl, dreams, Kafka, Kierkegaard, tautology, the two suppers
No Passion Spent by George Steiner Read More »
What can one say about A.C. Bradley’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._C._Bradley) Shakespearean Tragedy? This is a masterpiece of literary criticism that has enriched and influenced generations of students and lovers of Shakespeare since its publication in 1904. There is a beautiful lyrical poise and scholarly self-assurance in the work which makes one go back to read again (I
Shakespearean Tragedy by A.C. Bradley Read More »
