Author: Colm O’Shea
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000617742
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
The Sanskrit word mandala can be translated as "sacred circle." Within the circle sits a microcosm of the universe and/or consciousness, repre-sented by icons. Eastern civilizations developed the spiritual-artistic practice of creating mandalas—with sand, paint, and architecture—to high technical sophistication, making manifest a geometry with layers of esoteric meaning for both the mandala artist and the initiated spectator. James Joyce’s Mandala outlines and explains this iconic sacred geometry, and assesses to what extent Joyce’s works of literature, in particular Finnegans Wake, can be understood as mandalic constructs. Using exam-ples from Dubliners to the Wake, we see how fundamental to Joyce’s fiction is the issue of spiritual paralysis (a problem the mandala attempts to dissolve) and also how fascinated he was by geometric imagery and symmetry, the technical devices employed in mandala construction. This is the first book-length comparison of Joyce’s work with the mythic structure of the mandala. Never discounting the richness of Joyce’s genius, it uses his "collideorscape" to explore the secrets of the mandala principle as much as it uses mandala theory to illuminate his famed book of the night.
James Joyce’s Mandala
Author: Colm O’Shea
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000617742
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
The Sanskrit word mandala can be translated as "sacred circle." Within the circle sits a microcosm of the universe and/or consciousness, repre-sented by icons. Eastern civilizations developed the spiritual-artistic practice of creating mandalas—with sand, paint, and architecture—to high technical sophistication, making manifest a geometry with layers of esoteric meaning for both the mandala artist and the initiated spectator. James Joyce’s Mandala outlines and explains this iconic sacred geometry, and assesses to what extent Joyce’s works of literature, in particular Finnegans Wake, can be understood as mandalic constructs. Using exam-ples from Dubliners to the Wake, we see how fundamental to Joyce’s fiction is the issue of spiritual paralysis (a problem the mandala attempts to dissolve) and also how fascinated he was by geometric imagery and symmetry, the technical devices employed in mandala construction. This is the first book-length comparison of Joyce’s work with the mythic structure of the mandala. Never discounting the richness of Joyce’s genius, it uses his "collideorscape" to explore the secrets of the mandala principle as much as it uses mandala theory to illuminate his famed book of the night.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000617742
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
The Sanskrit word mandala can be translated as "sacred circle." Within the circle sits a microcosm of the universe and/or consciousness, repre-sented by icons. Eastern civilizations developed the spiritual-artistic practice of creating mandalas—with sand, paint, and architecture—to high technical sophistication, making manifest a geometry with layers of esoteric meaning for both the mandala artist and the initiated spectator. James Joyce’s Mandala outlines and explains this iconic sacred geometry, and assesses to what extent Joyce’s works of literature, in particular Finnegans Wake, can be understood as mandalic constructs. Using exam-ples from Dubliners to the Wake, we see how fundamental to Joyce’s fiction is the issue of spiritual paralysis (a problem the mandala attempts to dissolve) and also how fascinated he was by geometric imagery and symmetry, the technical devices employed in mandala construction. This is the first book-length comparison of Joyce’s work with the mythic structure of the mandala. Never discounting the richness of Joyce’s genius, it uses his "collideorscape" to explore the secrets of the mandala principle as much as it uses mandala theory to illuminate his famed book of the night.
James Joyce's Mandala
Author: COLM. O'SHEA
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781032076775
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
This is the first book-length comparison of Joyce's work with the mythic structure of the mandala, using his "collideorscape" to explore the secrets of the mandala principle as much as it uses mandala theory to illuminate his famed book of the night.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781032076775
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
This is the first book-length comparison of Joyce's work with the mythic structure of the mandala, using his "collideorscape" to explore the secrets of the mandala principle as much as it uses mandala theory to illuminate his famed book of the night.
Joyce's Kaleidoscope
Author: Philip Kitcher
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195321022
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
James Joyce's Ulysses, once regarded as obscure and obscene, is now viewed as one of the masterpieces of world literature. Yet Joyce's final novel, Finnegans Wake, to which he devoted seventeen years, remains virtually unread, except by scholarly specialists. Joyce's Kaleidoscope attempts to dissolve the darkness and to invite lovers of literature to engage with Finnegans Wake. This engaging guide will aid readers not just to make sense of the novel, but to relish the remarkable accomplishment of Joyce's least appreciated work.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195321022
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
James Joyce's Ulysses, once regarded as obscure and obscene, is now viewed as one of the masterpieces of world literature. Yet Joyce's final novel, Finnegans Wake, to which he devoted seventeen years, remains virtually unread, except by scholarly specialists. Joyce's Kaleidoscope attempts to dissolve the darkness and to invite lovers of literature to engage with Finnegans Wake. This engaging guide will aid readers not just to make sense of the novel, but to relish the remarkable accomplishment of Joyce's least appreciated work.
John McGahern
Author: John Singleton
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000996751
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
John McGahern (1934–2006) believed that fiction could act as a window on the world. Such windows, however, frame our fields of vision, alter and shape our perspectives. Far from being static, the artist’s perspective must continually evolve. This book provides a literary analysis of John McGahern’s artistic and poetic vision – his ‘ways of looking’, examining the shifting focus of this vision: how and why it develops, what effects such developments have on the work’s forms and how these forms evolve, at what times and in response to what stimuli. This volume demonstrates that such developments mirror an analogous social expansion during the latter half of the twentieth century and argues that McGahern’s literary spaces relate to his efforts to realise a more accommodating form to envelop the structureless society. While the number of critical studies on McGahern has increased markedly in recent years, research still tends to fall into the well-established camps of social realism or literary aestheticism. This text aims to explore the common ground between the material context and social worlds of each work and the hermeneutics of a ‘traditional’ literary investigation. It traverses such divides through close readings of McGahern’s work, with attention to the topopoetical production of images of the house, the home and the family unit. The book ultimately shows how attention to McGahern’s literary spaces provides a greater understanding of the aesthetic, vision and form of each novel and allows us to understand those aspects relative to the social, cultural and political undercurrents of the works individually and collectively.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000996751
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
John McGahern (1934–2006) believed that fiction could act as a window on the world. Such windows, however, frame our fields of vision, alter and shape our perspectives. Far from being static, the artist’s perspective must continually evolve. This book provides a literary analysis of John McGahern’s artistic and poetic vision – his ‘ways of looking’, examining the shifting focus of this vision: how and why it develops, what effects such developments have on the work’s forms and how these forms evolve, at what times and in response to what stimuli. This volume demonstrates that such developments mirror an analogous social expansion during the latter half of the twentieth century and argues that McGahern’s literary spaces relate to his efforts to realise a more accommodating form to envelop the structureless society. While the number of critical studies on McGahern has increased markedly in recent years, research still tends to fall into the well-established camps of social realism or literary aestheticism. This text aims to explore the common ground between the material context and social worlds of each work and the hermeneutics of a ‘traditional’ literary investigation. It traverses such divides through close readings of McGahern’s work, with attention to the topopoetical production of images of the house, the home and the family unit. The book ultimately shows how attention to McGahern’s literary spaces provides a greater understanding of the aesthetic, vision and form of each novel and allows us to understand those aspects relative to the social, cultural and political undercurrents of the works individually and collectively.
Seamus Heaney’s Mythmaking
Author: Ian Hickey
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000867358
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Seamus Heaney’s Mythmaking examines Seamus Heaney’s poetic engagement with myth from his earliest work to the posthumous publication of Aeneid Book VI. The essays explore the ways in which Heaney creates his own mythic outlook through multiple mythic lenses. They reveal how Heaney adopts a demiurgic role throughout his career, creating a poetic universe that draws on diverse mythic cycles from Greco-Roman to Irish and Norse to Native American. In doing so, this collection is in dialogue with recent work on Heaney’s engagement with myth. However, it is unique in its wide-ranging perspective, extending beyond Ancient and Classical influences. In its focus on Heaney’s personal metamorphosis of several mythic cycles, this collection reveals more fully the poet’s unique approach to mythmaking, from his engagement with the act of translation to transnational influences on his work and from his poetic transformations to the poetry’s boundary-crossing transitions. Combining the work of established Heaney scholars with the perspectives of early-career researchers, this collection contains a wealth of original scholarship that reveals Heaney’s expansive mythic mind. Mythmaking, an act for which Heaney has faced severe criticism, is reconsidered by all contributors, prompting multifaceted and nuanced readings of the poet’s work.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000867358
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Seamus Heaney’s Mythmaking examines Seamus Heaney’s poetic engagement with myth from his earliest work to the posthumous publication of Aeneid Book VI. The essays explore the ways in which Heaney creates his own mythic outlook through multiple mythic lenses. They reveal how Heaney adopts a demiurgic role throughout his career, creating a poetic universe that draws on diverse mythic cycles from Greco-Roman to Irish and Norse to Native American. In doing so, this collection is in dialogue with recent work on Heaney’s engagement with myth. However, it is unique in its wide-ranging perspective, extending beyond Ancient and Classical influences. In its focus on Heaney’s personal metamorphosis of several mythic cycles, this collection reveals more fully the poet’s unique approach to mythmaking, from his engagement with the act of translation to transnational influences on his work and from his poetic transformations to the poetry’s boundary-crossing transitions. Combining the work of established Heaney scholars with the perspectives of early-career researchers, this collection contains a wealth of original scholarship that reveals Heaney’s expansive mythic mind. Mythmaking, an act for which Heaney has faced severe criticism, is reconsidered by all contributors, prompting multifaceted and nuanced readings of the poet’s work.
Masculinity and Identity in Irish Literature
Author: Cassandra S. Tully de Lope
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003857426
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
This book addresses Irish identity in Irish literature, especially masculinity in some of its forms through an interdisciplinary methodology. The study of language performance through literary analysis and corpus studies will enable readers to approach literary texts from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives, to take advantage of the texts’ full potential as well as examining these same texts through the perspective of gender identity. This will be carried out through a specialised corpus composed of 18 novels written by twentieth- and twenty-first-century male Irish authors. Thus, the language and behaviour patterns of contemporary Irish masculinity can be found as part of these male characters’ performance of identity. This book is primarily aimed at undergraduate and graduate students who wish to introduce themselves in the study of gender and identity in an Irish context as well as researchers looking for interdisciplinary methodologies of study. What is more, it can present researchers with varied options of analysis that corpus studies have not yet touched upon so thoroughly such as masculinity and Irish literature. As a monograph meant to show analysts new fields of study in Irish literature, this book will sell to academic libraries and can be used in MA courses.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003857426
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
This book addresses Irish identity in Irish literature, especially masculinity in some of its forms through an interdisciplinary methodology. The study of language performance through literary analysis and corpus studies will enable readers to approach literary texts from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives, to take advantage of the texts’ full potential as well as examining these same texts through the perspective of gender identity. This will be carried out through a specialised corpus composed of 18 novels written by twentieth- and twenty-first-century male Irish authors. Thus, the language and behaviour patterns of contemporary Irish masculinity can be found as part of these male characters’ performance of identity. This book is primarily aimed at undergraduate and graduate students who wish to introduce themselves in the study of gender and identity in an Irish context as well as researchers looking for interdisciplinary methodologies of study. What is more, it can present researchers with varied options of analysis that corpus studies have not yet touched upon so thoroughly such as masculinity and Irish literature. As a monograph meant to show analysts new fields of study in Irish literature, this book will sell to academic libraries and can be used in MA courses.
Wallace Stevens and the Contemporary Irish Novel
Author: Ian Tan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003826628
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 159
Book Description
Wallace Stevens and the Contemporary Irish Novel is a major contribution to the study of the literary influence of the American modernist poet Wallace Stevens. Stevens’s lifelong poetic quest for order and the championing of the creative affordances of the imagination finds compelling articulation in the positioning of the Irish novel as a response to larger legacies of Anglo-American modernism, and how aesthetic re-imagining can be possible in the aftermath of the destruction of certainties and literary tradition heralded by postmodern practice and metatextual consciousness. It is this book’s argument that intertextual influences flowing from Stevens’s poetry towards the vitality of the novelistic imagination enact robust dialectical exchanges between existential chaos and artistic order, contemporary form and poetic precursors. Through readings of novels by important contemporary Irish novelists John Banville, Colum McCann, Ed O’Loughlin, Iris Murdoch, and Emma Donoghue, this book contemporizes Stevens’s literary influence with refence to novelistic style, themes, and thematic preoccupations that stake the claim for the international status of the contemporary Irish novel as it shapes a new understanding of “world literature” as exchange between national languages, cultures, and alternative formulations of aesthetic modernity as continuing project.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003826628
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 159
Book Description
Wallace Stevens and the Contemporary Irish Novel is a major contribution to the study of the literary influence of the American modernist poet Wallace Stevens. Stevens’s lifelong poetic quest for order and the championing of the creative affordances of the imagination finds compelling articulation in the positioning of the Irish novel as a response to larger legacies of Anglo-American modernism, and how aesthetic re-imagining can be possible in the aftermath of the destruction of certainties and literary tradition heralded by postmodern practice and metatextual consciousness. It is this book’s argument that intertextual influences flowing from Stevens’s poetry towards the vitality of the novelistic imagination enact robust dialectical exchanges between existential chaos and artistic order, contemporary form and poetic precursors. Through readings of novels by important contemporary Irish novelists John Banville, Colum McCann, Ed O’Loughlin, Iris Murdoch, and Emma Donoghue, this book contemporizes Stevens’s literary influence with refence to novelistic style, themes, and thematic preoccupations that stake the claim for the international status of the contemporary Irish novel as it shapes a new understanding of “world literature” as exchange between national languages, cultures, and alternative formulations of aesthetic modernity as continuing project.
James Joyce Quarterly
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 542
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 542
Book Description
A Partial Enlightenment
Author: Avram Alpert
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231553390
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 119
Book Description
In many ways, Buddhism has become the global religion of the modern world. For its contemporary followers, the ideal of enlightenment promises inner peace and worldly harmony. And whereas other philosophies feel abstract and disembodied, Buddhism offers meditation as a means to realize this ideal. If we could all be as enlightened as Buddhists, some imagine, we could live in a much better world. For some time now, however, this beatific image of Buddhism has been under attack. Scholars and practitioners have criticized it as a Western fantasy that has nothing to do with the actual experiences of Buddhists. Avram Alpert combines personal experience and readings of modern novels to offer another way to understand modern Buddhism. He argues that it represents a rich resource not for attaining perfection but rather for finding meaning and purpose in a chaotic world. Finding unexpected affinities across world literature—Rudyard Kipling in colonial India, Yukio Mishima in postwar Japan, Bessie Head escaping apartheid South Africa—as well as in his own experiences living with Tibetan exiles, Alpert shows how these stories illuminate a world in which suffering is inevitable and total enlightenment is impossible. Yet they also give us access to partial enlightenments: powerful insights that become available when we come to terms with imperfection and stop looking for wholeness. A Partial Enlightenment reveals the moments of personal and social transformation that the inventions of modern Buddhism help make possible.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231553390
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 119
Book Description
In many ways, Buddhism has become the global religion of the modern world. For its contemporary followers, the ideal of enlightenment promises inner peace and worldly harmony. And whereas other philosophies feel abstract and disembodied, Buddhism offers meditation as a means to realize this ideal. If we could all be as enlightened as Buddhists, some imagine, we could live in a much better world. For some time now, however, this beatific image of Buddhism has been under attack. Scholars and practitioners have criticized it as a Western fantasy that has nothing to do with the actual experiences of Buddhists. Avram Alpert combines personal experience and readings of modern novels to offer another way to understand modern Buddhism. He argues that it represents a rich resource not for attaining perfection but rather for finding meaning and purpose in a chaotic world. Finding unexpected affinities across world literature—Rudyard Kipling in colonial India, Yukio Mishima in postwar Japan, Bessie Head escaping apartheid South Africa—as well as in his own experiences living with Tibetan exiles, Alpert shows how these stories illuminate a world in which suffering is inevitable and total enlightenment is impossible. Yet they also give us access to partial enlightenments: powerful insights that become available when we come to terms with imperfection and stop looking for wholeness. A Partial Enlightenment reveals the moments of personal and social transformation that the inventions of modern Buddhism help make possible.
James Joyce
Author: Harold Bloom
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438116039
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 121
Book Description
Includes critical views on two of James Joyce's works: A portrait of the artist as a young man; and, Ulysses.
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438116039
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 121
Book Description
Includes critical views on two of James Joyce's works: A portrait of the artist as a young man; and, Ulysses.