How Literature Works

How Literature Works PDF

Author: John Sutherland

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-03-01

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 019979426X

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How Literature Works is an indispensable book for any reader seeking a greater appreciation of their favorite novel, poem, or play. It offers a lively and straightforward guide to literary thinking. With a series of compact essays, the renowned literary critic John Sutherland--widely admired for his wit and clear reasoning--strips away the obscurity and pretension of literary study. His book offers concise definitions and clear examples of the fifty concepts that all book lovers should know. It includes basic descriptive terms (ambiguity, epic), the core vocabulary of literary culture (genre, style), and devices employed by authors (irony, defamiliarization). More broadly, How Literature Works explores the animating concepts behind literary theory (textuality, sexual politics), traces the forces that impact literature's role in the real world (obscenity, plagiarism), and grapples with the future of reading (fanfic, e-book). For any reader who wants to get the most out of the literature they read, Sutherland's short sharp book will both inform and delight.

The Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher in the Rye PDF

Author: J. D. Salinger

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2019-08-13

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 0316460001

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The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books. "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caufield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.

"What is Literature?" and Other Essays

Author: Jean-Paul Sartre

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780674950849

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What is Literature? challenges anyone who writes as if literature could be extricated from history or society. But Sartre does more than indict. He offers a definitive statement about the phenomenology of reading, and he goes on to provide a dashing example of how to write a history of literature that takes ideology and institutions into account.

The Politics Book

The Politics Book PDF

Author: DK

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2015-03-02

Total Pages: 729

ISBN-13: 1465441077

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Learn about how the world of government and power works in The Politics Book. Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Politics in this overview guide to the subject, great for novices looking to find out more and experts wishing to refresh their knowledge alike! The Politics Book brings a fresh and vibrant take on the topic through eye-catching graphics and diagrams to immerse yourself in. This captivating book will broaden your understanding of Politics, with: - More than 100 groundbreaking ideas in the history of political thought - Packed with facts, charts, timelines and graphs to help explain core concepts - A visual approach to big subjects with striking illustrations and graphics throughout - Easy to follow text makes topics accessible for people at any level of understanding The Politics Book is a captivating introduction to the world's greatest thinkers and their political big ideas that continue to shape our lives today, aimed at adults with an interest in the subject and students wanting to gain more of an overview. Delve into the development of long-running themes, like attitudes to democracy and violence, developed by thinkers from Confucius in ancient China to Mahatma Gandhi in 20th-century India, all through exciting text and bold graphics. Your Politics Questions, Simply Explained This engaging overview explores the big political ideas such as capitalism, communism, and fascism, exploring their beginnings and social contexts - and the political thinkers who have made significant contributions. If you thought it was difficult to learn about governing bodies and affairs, The Politics Book presents key information in a clear layout. Learn about the ideas of ancient and medieval philosophers and statesmen, as well as the key personalities of the 16th to the 21st centuries that have shaped political thinking, policy, and statecraft. The Big Ideas Series With millions of copies sold worldwide, The Politics Book is part of the award-winning Big Ideas series from DK. The series uses striking graphics along with engaging writing, making big topics easy to understand.

How Literature Works

How Literature Works PDF

Author: Kenneth Quinn

Publisher: Red Globe Press

Published: 1992-07-21

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0333568346

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In How Literature Works important issues of literary theory are vividly illustrated by application to a wide variety of texts, many quoted and discussed at length. The theoretical aspects covered include the structural characteristics of literary texts, the psychology of the reading process and the social function of literature. The book also deals with such general questions as the relationship between literary texts and `objective' prose and the relationship between poems written to work as songs and those in which the lyric form is used to develop an argument: the singing and the speaking voice.

Aunt Phillis's Cabin; Or, Southern Life As It Is

Aunt Phillis's Cabin; Or, Southern Life As It Is PDF

Author: Mary H. Eastman

Publisher: DigiCat

Published: 2022-05-28

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13:

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This book is a plantation fiction novel. It was a strong commercial success and bestseller. Based on her growing up in Warrenton, Virginia, of an elite planter family, Eastman portrays plantation owners and slaves as mutually respectful, kind, and happy beings.

The Work of Literature

The Work of Literature PDF

Author: Derek Attridge

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2015-03-26

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0191047589

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What is distinctive about the cultural practice called 'literature'? How does it benefit individuals and society? How do literary works retain their importance and their capacity to give pleasure over decades and centuries? What constitutes responsible criticism? These are some of the questions addressed in this book, which develops the arguments put forward in Derek Attridge's influential study The Singularity of Literature (2004). Beginning with an extended cross-examination in the form of an interview addressing a range of topics relating to the work of literature (understood both as the activity of the writer and as the text itself) and the practices of literary reading and literary criticism, it asks what it means to 'do justice to' a work of literature, provides a full account of the concept of singularity, considers the problematic power of criticism, and advances an account of the role of context in the writing and reading of literary works. In other chapters it explores the issue of cultural difference in responses to literature, discusses the working of metaphor, questions the attribution of knowledge to literary works, and addresses the topics of affect and hospitality. The book follows through the consequences of regarding the singular and inventive work of literature as an event that takes place anew each time it is read, providing an opening to an otherness excluded by prevailing cultural norms and habits of thought and feeling. Although the focus of the book is on literature, the arguments are relevant to all the arts, and engage with the thought of major aesthetic theorists in a number of traditions.

Rescuing Socrates

Rescuing Socrates PDF

Author: Roosevelt Montas

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2023-03-21

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0691224390

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A Dominican-born academic tells the story of how the Great Books transformed his life—and why they have the power to speak to people of all backgrounds What is the value of a liberal education? Traditionally characterized by a rigorous engagement with the classics of Western thought and literature, this approach to education is all but extinct in American universities, replaced by flexible distribution requirements and ever-narrower academic specialization. Many academics attack the very idea of a Western canon as chauvinistic, while the general public increasingly doubts the value of the humanities. In Rescuing Socrates, Dominican-born American academic Roosevelt Montás tells the story of how a liberal education transformed his life, and offers an intimate account of the relevance of the Great Books today, especially to members of historically marginalized communities. Montás emigrated from the Dominican Republic to Queens, New York, when he was twelve and encountered the Western classics as an undergraduate in Columbia University’s renowned Core Curriculum, one of America’s last remaining Great Books programs. The experience changed his life and determined his career—he went on to earn a PhD in English and comparative literature, serve as director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum, and start a Great Books program for low-income high school students who aspire to be the first in their families to attend college. Weaving together memoir and literary reflection, Rescuing Socrates describes how four authors—Plato, Augustine, Freud, and Gandhi—had a profound impact on Montás’s life. In doing so, the book drives home what it’s like to experience a liberal education—and why it can still remake lives.