This volume covers the flowering of Victorian literature, from the decade when Tennyson started writing 'In Memoriam' and Darwin embarked on 'The Beagle' to the publication of Hardy's first great novels and the death of George Eliot.
This volume presents original case-histories of readers to delve into just what reading is and how it works. Each chapter begins with a poem or excerpt which becomes the scene either of a reading-group transcription or of a thought-piece from an interviewed reader to explore therapeutic reading and how culture might impact upon health.
Biography of George Eliot (1819-1880, born as Mary Anne Evans), British writer and poet. It gives an account of what it means to become a novelist, and to think like a novelist: in particular a realist novelist for whom art exists not for art's sake but in the exploration and service of human life.
The original and imaginative portrait of Dr Johnson--the man and the writer--gets behind his public face and uncovers the human struggle out of which Johnson's moral view of life emerged. The author presents a challenging reading of the Rambler essays and Rasselas, unveiling the presence in these works of Johnson's inner life. Convincing and persuasive, it is an approach which flies in the face of established critical fashions and preconceptions and which reveals Johnson in a completely new light.
His mind and hand went together' said Hemings and Condell of the speed of Shakespeare. But the conceptual language of literary criticism, be it moralistic or political, has long been too slow to properly respond to Shakespeare's meaning. With the help of both Renaissance philosophers and present-day actors, Sudden Shakespeare seeks to locate the underlying secrets of Shakespeare's dynamic power. It offers a technical language which, close to Shakespeare's own, is capable of responding suddenly to the speed, transforming shape, and power of Shakespeare's way of thinking as it comes into meaning.
Biography of George Eliot (1819-1880, born as Mary Anne Evans), British writer and poet. It gives an account of what it means to become a novelist, and to think like a novelist: in particular a realist novelist for whom art exists not for art's sake but in the exploration and service of human life.
In Mystics and Messiahs--the first full account of cults and anti-cult scares in American history--Philip Jenkins shows that, contrary to popular belief, cults were by no means an invention of the 1960s. In fact, most of the frightening images and stereotypes surrounding fringe religious movements are traceable to the mid-nineteenth century when Mormons, Freemasons, and even Catholics were denounced for supposed ritualistic violence, fraud, and sexual depravity. But America has also been the home of an often hysterical anti-cult backlash. Jenkins offers an insightful new analysis of why cults arouse such fear and hatred both in the secular world and in mainstream churches, many of which were themselves originally regarded as cults. He argues that an accurate historical perspective is urgently needed if we are to avoid the kind of catastrophic confrontation that occurred in Waco or the ruinous prosecution of imagined Satanic cults that swept the country in the 1980s. Without ignoring genuine instances of aberrant behavior, Mystics and Messiahs goes beyond the vast edifice of myth, distortion, and hype to reveal the true characteristics of religious fringe movements and why they inspire such fierce antagonism.
Why did the youthful optimism and openness of the sixties give way to Ronald Reagan and the spirit of conservative reaction--a spirit that remains ascendant today? Drawing on a wide array of sources--including tabloid journalism, popular fiction, movies, and television shows--Philip Jenkins argues that a remarkable confluence of panics, scares, and a few genuine threats created a climate of fear that led to the conservative reaction. He identifies 1975 to 1986 as the watershed years. During this time, he says, there was a sharp increase in perceived threats to our security at home and abroad. At home, America seemed to be threatened by monstrous criminals--serial killers, child abusers, Satanic cults, and predatory drug dealers, to name just a few. On the international scene, we were confronted by the Soviet Union and its evil empire, by OPEC with its stranglehold on global oil, by the Ayatollahs who made hostages of our diplomats in Iran. Increasingly, these dangers began to be described in terms of moral evil. Rejecting the radicalism of the '60s, which many saw as the source of the crisis, Americans adopted a more pessimistic interpretation of human behavior, which harked back to much older themes in American culture. This simpler but darker vision ultimately brought us Ronald Reagan and the ascendancy of the political Right, which more than two decades later shows no sign of loosening its grip. Writing in his usual crisp and witty prose, Jenkins offers a truly original and persuasive account of a period that continues to fascinate the American public. It is bound to captivate anyone who lived through this period, as well as all those who want to understand the forces that transformed--and continue to define--the American political landscape.
This volume presents original case-histories of readers to delve into just what reading is and how it works. Each chapter begins with a poem or excerpt which becomes the scene either of a reading-group transcription or of a thought-piece from an interviewed reader to explore therapeutic reading and how culture might impact upon health.
Philip K Dick’s visionary forerunner to the novel ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ that became the film Bladerunner, tells the story of Louis Rosen and his love for the daughter of his business partner and the truth about where his life-like androids might end up...
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