The Attack on Literature and Other Essays

The Attack on Literature and Other Essays PDF

Author: Rene Wellek

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2018-07-25

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0807837075

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With the erudition that has distinguished his lifelong study of literary criticism, Wellek considers the trends, theories, and quarrels of recent years. He continues to insist that criticism--whether written by structuralists, phenomenologists, Marxists, or the New Critics--makes judgments and also takes into account "a common humanity that makes all art accessible to us." He also considers the relationship between literature and linguistics and the difficulty of constructing evolutionary models for literary history. Originally published in 1982. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Attack of the Difficult Poems

Attack of the Difficult Poems PDF

Author: Charles Bernstein

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2011-04-30

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 0226044777

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Charles Bernstein is our postmodern jester of American poesy, equal part surveyor of democratic vistas and scholar of avant-garde sensibilities. In a career spanning thirty-five years and forty books, he has challenged and provoked us with writing that is decidedly unafraid of the tensions between ordinary and poetic language, and between everyday life and its adversaries. Attack of the Difficult Poems, his latest collection of essays, gathers some of his most memorably irreverent work while addressing seriously and comprehensively the state of contemporary humanities, the teaching of unconventional forms, fresh approaches to translation, the history of language media, and the connections between poetry and visual art. Applying an array of essayistic styles, Attack of the Difficult Poems ardently engages with the promise of its title. Bernstein introduces his key theme of the difficulty of poems and defends, often in comedic ways, not just difficult poetry but poetry itself. Bernstein never loses his ingenious ability to argue or his consummate attention to detail. Along the way, he offers a wide-ranging critique of literature’s place in the academy, taking on the vexed role of innovation and approaching it from the perspective of both teacher and practitioner. From blues artists to Tin Pan Alley song lyricists to Second Wave modernist poets, The Attack of the Difficult Poems sounds both a battle cry and a lament for the task of the language maker and the fate of invention.

Burning the Books

Burning the Books PDF

Author: Richard Ovenden

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2020-10-13

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0674241207

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The director of the famed Bodleian Libraries at Oxford narrates the global history of the willful destruction—and surprising survival—of recorded knowledge over the past three millennia. Libraries and archives have been attacked since ancient times but have been especially threatened in the modern era. Today the knowledge they safeguard faces purposeful destruction and willful neglect; deprived of funding, libraries are fighting for their very existence. Burning the Books recounts the history that brought us to this point. Richard Ovenden describes the deliberate destruction of knowledge held in libraries and archives from ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian tablets in Iraq to the destroyed immigration documents of the UK Windrush generation. He examines both the motivations for these acts—political, religious, and cultural—and the broader themes that shape this history. He also looks at attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, exploring the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information, often risking their own lives in the process. More than simply repositories for knowledge, libraries and archives inspire and inform citizens. In preserving notions of statehood recorded in such historical documents as the Declaration of Independence, libraries support the state itself. By preserving records of citizenship and records of the rights of citizens as enshrined in legal documents such as the Magna Carta and the decisions of the US Supreme Court, they support the rule of law. In Burning the Books, Ovenden takes a polemical stance on the social and political importance of the conservation and protection of knowledge, challenging governments in particular, but also society as a whole, to improve public policy and funding for these essential institutions.

Attack of the Copula Spiders

Attack of the Copula Spiders PDF

Author: Douglas Glover

Publisher: Biblioasis

Published: 2012-03-27

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1926845471

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A GLOBE & MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR 2012 “Glover is a master of narrative structure.” —Wall Street Journal In the tradition of E.M. Forster, John Gardner, and James Wood, Douglas Glover has produced a book on writing at once erudite, anecdotal, instructive, and amusing. Attack of the Copula Spiders represents the accumulated wisdom of a remarkable literary career: novelist, short story writer, essayist, teacher and mentor, Glover has for decades been asking the vital questions. How does the way we read influence the way we write? What do craft books fail to teach aspiring writers about theme, about plot and subplot, about constructing point of view? How can we maintain drama on the level of the sentence—and explain drama in the sentences of others? What is the relationship of form and art? How do you make words live? Whether his subject is Alice Munro, Cervantes, or the creative writing classroom, Glover’s take is frank and fresh, demonstrating again and again that graceful writers must first be strong readers. This collection is a call-to-arms for all lovers of English, and Attack of the Copula Spiders our best defense against the assaults of a post-literate age. Douglas Glover is the award-winning author of five story collections, four novels, and two works of non-fiction. He is currently on the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing program. Praise for Douglas Glover "So sharp, so evocative, that the reader sees well beyond the tissue of words into ... the author's poetic grace." - The New Yorker "Glover invents his own assembly of critical approaches and theories that is eclectic, personal, scholarly, and smart ... a direction for future literary criticism to take." - The Denver Quarterly "A ribald, raunchy wit with a talent for searing self-investigation." - The Globe and Mail "Knotty, intelligent, often raucously funny." - Maclean's "Passionately intricate." - The Chicago Tribune "Darkly humorous, simultaneously restless and relentless." - Kirkus Reviews

The Attack of the Two Inch Teacher

The Attack of the Two Inch Teacher PDF

Author: Bruce Coville

Publisher: Listening Library

Published: 2000-05-01

Total Pages: 165

ISBN-13: 9780807283547

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Pleskit Meenom is tired of constantly being teased by Jordan Lynch. Pleskit & his friend Tim decide to teach Jordan a lesson & borrow a shrinking ray from the desk of Pleskit's Fatherly One. Unfortunately, the plan backfires & it is Tim & their teacher Ms. Weintrab that get shrunk. If this gets out, it could ruin the alien mission. But how can you hide the fact that you've shrunk your teacher?

The Attack

The Attack PDF

Author: Yasmina Khadra

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2007-05-08

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 0307386953

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From the bestselling author of The Swallows of Kabul comes this timely and haunting novel that powerfully illuminates the devastating human costs of terrorism.Dr. Amin Jaafari is an Arab-Israeli surgeon at a hospital in Tel Aviv. As an admired and respected member of his community, he has carved a space for himself and his wife, Sihem, at the crossroads of two troubled societies. Jaafari’s world is abruptly shattered when Sihem is killed in a suicide bombing.As evidence mounts that Sihem could have been responsible for the catastrophic bombing, Jaafari begins a tortured search for answers. Faced with the ultimate betrayal, he must find a way to reconcile his cherished memories of his wife with the growing realization that she may have had another life, one that was entirely removed from the comfortable, modern existence that they shared.

The Prevention of Literature

The Prevention of Literature PDF

Author: George Orwell

Publisher: Renard Press Ltd

Published: 2021-01-01

Total Pages: 48

ISBN-13: 191372431X

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George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In The Prevention of Literature, the third in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell considers the freedom of thought and expression. He discusses the effect of the ownership of the press on the accuracy of reports of events, and takes aim at political language, which ‘consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together.’ The Prevention of Literature is a stirring cry for freedom from censorship, which Orwell says must start with the writer themselves: ‘To write in plain vigorous language one has to think fearlessly.’ 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times