Signs of the Literary Times PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Signs of the Literary Times PDF full book. Access full book title Signs of the Literary Times by William O'Rourke. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: William O'Rourke
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791416822
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book is O'Rourkes first volume of nonfiction since his 1972 The Harrisburg 7 and the New Catholic Left, which Garry Wills hailed as "a clinical x-ray of our society's condition." That book prompted Herbert Mitgang to name O'Rourke "one of the finest writers of his generation." Signs of the Literary Times provides new evidence for that assessment. It brings together ORourkes unique mixture of literary, political, and cultural criticism published periodically during the last twenty-two years. The collection ranges from autobiographical essays describing his generations literary evolution, to articles on free speech issues, such as nude dancing and the Bush-era NEA controversies, as well as book reviews that provide a fresh and largely uncharted critical map of the period. ORourke is not only interested in genre bending and expansion, but in persevering during this age of academic specialization as, in his phrase, a person of letters. In the two decades between his first work of nonfiction and this volume, ORourke has published three highly acclaimed novels, The Meekness of Isaac (1974), Idle Hands (1981), and Criminal Tendencies (1987). Of the last, The Virginia Quarterly Review wrote, Of all the novelists paraded in recent years by publishers as natural successors to Graham Greene, this one comes the closest. A thoroughly entertaining literary event. Signs of the Literary Times is not so much a compendium of diverse pieces on various subjects, as it is a cogent and continuing x-ray of our society's condition.
Author: William O'Rourke
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791416822
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book is O'Rourkes first volume of nonfiction since his 1972 The Harrisburg 7 and the New Catholic Left, which Garry Wills hailed as "a clinical x-ray of our society's condition." That book prompted Herbert Mitgang to name O'Rourke "one of the finest writers of his generation." Signs of the Literary Times provides new evidence for that assessment. It brings together ORourkes unique mixture of literary, political, and cultural criticism published periodically during the last twenty-two years. The collection ranges from autobiographical essays describing his generations literary evolution, to articles on free speech issues, such as nude dancing and the Bush-era NEA controversies, as well as book reviews that provide a fresh and largely uncharted critical map of the period. ORourke is not only interested in genre bending and expansion, but in persevering during this age of academic specialization as, in his phrase, a person of letters. In the two decades between his first work of nonfiction and this volume, ORourke has published three highly acclaimed novels, The Meekness of Isaac (1974), Idle Hands (1981), and Criminal Tendencies (1987). Of the last, The Virginia Quarterly Review wrote, Of all the novelists paraded in recent years by publishers as natural successors to Graham Greene, this one comes the closest. A thoroughly entertaining literary event. Signs of the Literary Times is not so much a compendium of diverse pieces on various subjects, as it is a cogent and continuing x-ray of our society's condition.
Author: Elizabeth Abel
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520261836
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 414
Get Book Here
Book Description
"The George Gund Foundation imprint in African American studies."--Page [i] of preliminary pages.
Author: David Lehman
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9780671775940
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Get Book Here
Book Description
One of the most talked about books of the year. "A lucid and fiercely intelligent study of the disturbing implications of deconstruction, and at the same time, an impassioned argument for a more humane study of literature".--The New York Times.
Author: William Brevda
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
ISBN: 1611480434
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 435
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book is a study of signs in American literature and culture. It is mainly about electric signs, but also deals with non-electric signs and related phenomena, such as movie sets. The 'sign' is considered in both the architectural and semiotic senses of the word. It is argued that the drama and spectacle of the electric sign called attention to the semiotic implications of the 'sign.' In fiction, poetry, and commentary, the electric SIGN became a 'sign' of manifold meanings that this book explores: a sign of the city, a sign of America, a sign of the twentieth century, a sign of modernism, a sign of postmodernism, a sign of noir, a sign of naturalism, a sign of the beats, a sign of signs systems (the Bible to Broadway), a sign of tropes (the Great White way to the neon jungle), a sign of the writers themselves, a sign of the sign itself. If Moby Dick is the great American novel, then it is also the great American novel about signs, as the prologue maintains. The chapters that follow demonstrate that the sign is indeed a 'sign' of American literature. After the electric sign was invented, it influenced Stephen Crane to become a nightlight impressionist and Theodore Dreiser to make the 'fire sign' his metaphor for the city. An actual Broadway sign might have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. In Manhattan Transfer and U.S.A., John Dos Passos portrayed America as just a spectacular sign. William Faulkner's electric signs are full of sound and fury signifying modernity. The Last Tycoon was a sign of Fitzgerald's decline. The signs of noir can be traced to Poe's 'The Man of the Crowd.' Absence flickers in the neons of Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. The death of God haunts the neon wilderness of Nelson Algren. Hitler's 'empire' was an non-intentional parody of Nathanael West's California. The beats reinvented Times Square in their own image. Jack Kerouac's search for the center of Saturday night was a quest for transcendence. This book will interest readers who want to learn more about the city, the history of advertising, electric lighting, nightlife, architecture, and semiotics. In contrast to other cultural studies, however, Signs of the Signs is primarily a work of literary criticism. Lovers of literary light will appreciate this book the most.
Author: Roy Harris
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415100885
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Get Book Here
Book Description
By treating writing as an independent mode of communication, based on the use of spatial relations to connect events separated in time, the author shows how other forms of writing obey the same principles.In Signs of Writing Roy Harris re-examines basic questions about writing that have long been obscured by the traditional assumption that writing is merely a visual substitute for speech.By treating writing as an independent mode of communication, based on the use of spatial relations to connect events separated in time, the author shows how musical, mathematical and other forms of writing obey the same principles as verbal writing. These principles, he argues, apply to texts of all kinds: a sonnet, a symphonic score, a signature on a cheque and a supermarket label. Moreover, they apply throughout the history of writing, from hieroglyphics to hypertext.This is the first book to provide a new general theory of writing in over forty years. Signs of Writing will be essential reading for anyone interested in language and communication.
Author: Stephen Fabes
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 178283477X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 358
Get Book Here
Book Description
'A thoughtful exploration of humanity ... Fabes is great company and makes riding bicycles seem like the best way to see and understand the world' - Guardian They say that being a good doctor boils down to just four things: Shut up, listen, know something, care. The same could be said for life on the road, too. When Stephen Fabes left his job as a junior doctor and set out to cycle around the world, frontline medicine quickly faded from his mind. Of more pressing concern were the daily challenges of life as an unfit rider on an overloaded bike, helplessly in thrall to pastries. But leaving medicine behind is not as easy as it seems. As he roves continents, he finds people whose health has suffered through exile, stigma or circumstance, and others, whose lives have been saved through kindness and community. After encountering a frozen body of a monk in the Himalayas, he is drawn ever more to healthcare at the margins of the world, to crumbling sanitoriums and refugee camps, to city dumps and war-torn hospital wards. And as he learns the value of listening to lives - not just solving diagnostic puzzles - Stephen challenges us to see care for the sick as a duty born of our humanity, and our compassion.
Author: Marina Warner
Publisher: Vintage Books
ISBN: 9780099437727
Category : Culture
Languages : en
Pages : 516
Get Book Here
Book Description
From a highly original and profound commentator on the culture of the past and present comes this superb 25-year retrospective collection of her finest essays on fiction, drama, religion and fairy-tale.
Author: Karen Fang
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813928826
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Get Book Here
Book Description
Nineteenth-century periodicals frequently compared themselves to the imperial powers then dissecting the globe, and this interest in imperialism can be seen in the exotic motifs that surfaced in works by such late Romantic authors as John Keats, Charles Lamb, James Hogg, Letitia Landon, and Lord Byron. Karen Fang explores the collaboration of these authors with periodical magazines to show how an interdependent relationship between these visual themes and rhetorical style enabled these authors to model their writing on the imperial project. Fang argues that in the decades after Waterloo late Romantic authors used imperial culture to capitalize on the contemporary explosion of periodical magazines. This proliferation of "post-Napoleonic" writing—often referencing exotic locales—both revises longstanding notions about literary orientalism and reveals a remarkable synthesis of Romantic idealism with contemporary cultural materialism that heretofore has not been explored. Indeed, in interlocking case studies that span the reach of British conquest, ranging from Greece, China, and Egypt to Italy and Tahiti, Fang challenges a major convention of periodical publication. While periodicals are usually thought to be defined by time, this account of the geographic attention exerted by late Romantic authors shows them to be equally concerned with space. With its exploration of magazines and imperialism as a context for Romantic writing, culture, and aesthetics, this book will appeal not only to scholars of book history and reading cultures but also to those of nineteenth-century British writing and history.
Author: Alix Ohlin
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 1770892095
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Get Book Here
Book Description
A New York Times Editors' Choice and an Oprah's Book Club Summer Reading Pick In this brilliant new collection, Scotiabank Giller Prize and Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize nominee Alix Ohlin skillfully displays the full range of human emotions through the subtly powerful dramas of everyday life. In "You Are What You Like" a young couple finds their life derailed by the arrival of a hard-partying old friend. In "Robbing the Cradle" Lisette does everything she can to give her husband a baby, committing an act of desperation. In "The Idea Man" Beth, a divorcee, falls in love with a man who lies for fun. And in the incredible title story, Kathleen finds herself sitting at the hospital bedside of a man she had planned to divorce, comforted by the woman she went out of her way to hurt. These characters are divorced and beginning to date again, childless and longing for children, married and aching for more. Often unexpected and unsettling, always fascinating, Signs and Wonders showcases a young writer of remarkable range and emotional depth.
Author: Roland Barthes
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780374522070
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Get Book Here
Book Description
This anthology by Roland Barthes is a reflection on his travels to Japan in the 1960s. In twenty-six short chapters he writes about his encounters with symbols of Japanese culture as diverse as pachinko, train stations, chopsticks, food, physiognomy, poetry, and gift-wrapping. He muses elegantly on, and with affection for, a system "altogether detached from our own." For Barthes, the sign here does not signify, and so offers liberation from the West's endless creation of meaning. Tokyo, like all major cities, has a center--the Imperial Palace--but in this case it is empty, "both forbidden and indifferent ... inhabited by an emperor whom no one ever sees." This emptiness of the sign is pursued throughout the book, and offers a stimulating alternative line of thought about the ways in which cultures are structured.
