A Concise Companion to Chaucer

This concise Companion offers an innovative approach to understanding the Modernist literary mind in Britain, focusing on the intellectual and cultural contexts, which shaped it. Offers an innovative approach to understanding the Modernist literary mind in Britain. Helps readers to grasp the intellectual and cultural contexts of literary Modernism. Organised around contemporary ideas such as Freudianism and eugenics rather than literary genres. Relates literary Modernism to the overarching issues of the period, such as feminism, imperialism and war.

With brevity, depth, and accessibility, this book helps readers to appreciate the works of John Milton, and to understand the great influence they have had on literature and other disciplines. Presents new and authoritative essays by internationally respected Milton scholars Explains how and why Milton’s works established their central place in the English literary canon Structured chronologically around Milton’s major works Also includes a select bibliography and a chronology detailing Milton’s life and works alongside relevant world events Ideal as a first critical work on Milton

A Concise Companion to the Romantic Age provides new perspectives on the relationships between literature and culture in Britain from 1780 to 1830 Provides original essays from a variety of multi-disciplinary scholars on the Romantic era Includes fresh insights into such topics as religious controversy and politics, empire and nationalism, and the relationship of Romanticism to modernist aesthetics Ranges across the Romantic era's literary, visual, and non-fictional genres

This Concise Companion presents a multidisciplinary range of approaches to a vast multimedia subject, Shakespeare on screen. Draws on the latest thinking in cultural studies, communications, and comparative media, in dialogue with literary, theatrical and filmic approaches. Organised around themes, such as authorship and collaboration, theatricality, sex and violence, globalization and history. Offers readers a variety of accessible routes into the subject of Shakespeare on screen. Also enables readers to explore fundamental topics in the study of literature and culture more broadly, such as the relationships between elite and popular culture, art and the marketplace, text and image. Includes suggestions for further reading, a bibliography, a filmography, a chronology and a thorough index.

This concise companion explores the history of psychoanalytic theory and its impact on contemporary literary criticism by tracing its movement across disciplinary and cultural boundaries. Contains original essays by leading scholars, using a wide range of cultural and historical approaches Discusses key concepts in psychoanalysis, such as the role of dreaming, psychosexuality, the unconscious, and the figure of the double, while considering questions of gender, race, asylum and international law, queer theory, time, and memory Spans the fields of psychoanalysis, literature, cultural theory, feminist and gender studies, translation studies, and film. Provides a timely and pertinent assessment of current psychoanalytic methods while also sketching out future directions for theory and interpretation

An authoritative guide to American literature, this Companion examines the experimental forms, socio-cultural changes, literary movements, and major authors of the early 20th century. This Companion provides authoritative and wide-ranging guidance on early twentieth-century American fiction. Considers commonly studied authors such as Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway, alongside key texts of the period by Richard Wright, Charles Chesnutt, Zora Neale Hurston, and Anzia Yezierska Examines how the works of these diverse writers have been interpreted in their own day and how current readings have expanded our understanding of their cultural and literary significance Covers a broad range of topics, including the First and Second World Wars, literary language differences, author celebrity, the urban landscape, modernism, the Jazz Age, the Great Depression, regionalism, and African-American fiction Gives students the contextual information necessary for formulating their own critiques of classic American fiction

This Concise Companion is a guide to the creative output of the United States in the postwar period, in its diverse energies, shapes and forms. Embraces diversity, covering Vietnam literature, gay and lesbian literature, American Jewish fiction, Italian American literature, Irish American writing, emergent ethnic literatures, African American writing, jazz, film, drama and more. Shows how different genres and approaches opened up creative possibilities and interacted in the postwar period. Portrays the postwar United States split by differences of wealth and position, by ethnicity and race, and by agendas of left and right, but united in the intensity of its creative drive.

Fully extended and revised, A Companion to Metaphysics 2nd Edition includes a section of detailed review essays from renowned metaphysicians, and the addition of more than 30 new encyclopedic entries, taking the number of entries to over 300. Includes revisions to existing encyclopedic entries Features more than 30 all-new «A to Z» entries Offers a section of in-depth, essays from renowned metaphysicians Provides the most complete and up-to-date reference guide for students and professionals alike

Offers comprehensive treatment of Thomas Hobbes’s thought, providing readers with different ways of understanding Hobbes as a systematic philosopher    As one of the founders of modern political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes is best known for his ideas regarding the nature of legitimate government and the necessity of society submitting to the absolute authority of sovereign power. Yet Hobbes produced a wide range of writings, from translations of texts by Homer and Thucydides, to interpretations of Biblical books, to works devoted to geometry, optics, morality, and religion. Hobbes viewed himself as presenting a unified method for theoretical and practical science—an interconnected system of philosophy that provides many entry points into his thought.  A Companion to Hobbes  is an expertly curated collection of essays offering close textual engagement with the thought of Thomas Hobbes in his major works while probing his ideas regarding natural philosophy, mathematics, human nature, civil philosophy, religion, and more. The Companion discusses the ways in which scholars have tried to understand the unity and diversity of Hobbes’s philosophical system and examines the reception of the different parts of Hobbes’s philosophy by thinkers such as Ren? Descartes, Margaret Cavendish, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. Presenting a diversity of fresh perspectives by both emerging and established scholars, this volume:  Provides a comprehensive treatment of Hobbes’s thought in his works, including Elements of Law, Elements of Philosophy, and Leviathan Explores the connecting points between Hobbes’ metaphysics, epistemology, mathematics, natural philosophy, morality, and civil philosophy Offers readers strategies for understanding how the parts of Hobbes’s philosophical system fit together Examines Hobbes’s philosophy of mathematics and his attempts to understand geometrical objects and definitions Considers Hobbes’s philosophy in contexts such as the natural state of humans, gender relations, and materialist worldviews Challenges conceptions of Hobbes’s moral theory and his views about the rights of sovereigns Part of the acclaimed  Blackwell Companions to Philosophy  series,  A Companion to Hobbes  is an invaluable resource for scholars and advanced students of Early modern thought, particularly those from disciplines such as History of Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Intellectual History, History of Politics, Political Theory, and English.

A Companion to Medieval Poetry presents a series of original essays from leading literary scholars that explore English poetry from the Anglo-Saxon period up to the 15th century. Organised into three parts to echo the chronological and stylistic divisions between the Anglo-Saxon, Middle English and Post-Chaucerian periods, each section is introduced with contextual essays, providing a valuable introduction to the society and culture of the time Combines a general discussion of genres of medieval poetry, with specific consideration of texts and authors, including Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer, Gower and Langland Features original essays by eminent scholars, including Andy Orchard, Carl Schmidt, Douglas Gray, and Barry Windeatt, who present a range of theoretical, historical, and cultural approaches to reading medieval poetry, as well as offering close analysis of individual texts and traditions