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Author: Melanie R. Anderson
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1572339802
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 184
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Book Description
At first glance, Beloved would appear to be the only “ghost story” among Toni Morrison’s nine novels, but as this provocative new study shows, spectral presences and places abound in the celebrated author’s fiction. Melanie R. Anderson explores how Morrison uses specters to bring the traumas of African American life to the forefront, highlighting histories and experiences, both cultural and personal, that society at large too frequently ignores. Working against the background of magical realism, while simultaneously expanding notions of the supernatural within American and African American writing, Morrison peoples her novels with what Anderson identifies as two distinctive types of ghosts: spectral figures and social ghosts. Deconstructing Western binaries, Morrison uses the spectral to indicate power through its transcendence of corporality, temporality, and explication, and she employs the ghostly as a metaphor of erasure for living characters who are marginalized and haunt the edges of their communities. The interaction of these social ghosts with the spectral presences functions as a transformative healing process that draws the marginalized figure out of the shadows and creates links across ruptures between generations and between past and present, life and death. This book examines how these relationships become increasingly more prominent in the novelist’s canon—from their beginnings in The Bluest Eye and Sula, to their flowering in the trilogy that comprises Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise, and onward into A Mercy. An important contribution to the understanding of one of America’s premier fiction writers, Spectrality in the Novels of Toni Morrison demonstrates how the Nobel laureate’s powerful and challenging works give presence to the invisible, voice to the previously silenced, and agency to the oppressed outsiders who are refused a space in which to narrate their stories. Melanie R. Anderson is an Instructional Assistant Professor of American Literature at the University of Mississippi.
Author: Melanie R. Anderson
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1572339802
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Get Book Here
Book Description
At first glance, Beloved would appear to be the only “ghost story” among Toni Morrison’s nine novels, but as this provocative new study shows, spectral presences and places abound in the celebrated author’s fiction. Melanie R. Anderson explores how Morrison uses specters to bring the traumas of African American life to the forefront, highlighting histories and experiences, both cultural and personal, that society at large too frequently ignores. Working against the background of magical realism, while simultaneously expanding notions of the supernatural within American and African American writing, Morrison peoples her novels with what Anderson identifies as two distinctive types of ghosts: spectral figures and social ghosts. Deconstructing Western binaries, Morrison uses the spectral to indicate power through its transcendence of corporality, temporality, and explication, and she employs the ghostly as a metaphor of erasure for living characters who are marginalized and haunt the edges of their communities. The interaction of these social ghosts with the spectral presences functions as a transformative healing process that draws the marginalized figure out of the shadows and creates links across ruptures between generations and between past and present, life and death. This book examines how these relationships become increasingly more prominent in the novelist’s canon—from their beginnings in The Bluest Eye and Sula, to their flowering in the trilogy that comprises Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise, and onward into A Mercy. An important contribution to the understanding of one of America’s premier fiction writers, Spectrality in the Novels of Toni Morrison demonstrates how the Nobel laureate’s powerful and challenging works give presence to the invisible, voice to the previously silenced, and agency to the oppressed outsiders who are refused a space in which to narrate their stories. Melanie R. Anderson is an Instructional Assistant Professor of American Literature at the University of Mississippi.
Author: Toni Morrison
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0804169888
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
The acclaimed Nobel Prize winner challenges our most fiercely held beliefs as she weaves folklore and history, memory and myth into an unforgettable meditation on race, religion, gender, and a far-off past that is ever present—in prose that soars with the rhythms, grandeur, and tragic arc of an epic poem. “They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time.” So begins Toni Morrison’s Paradise, which opens with a horrifying scene of mass violence and chronicles its genesis in an all-black small town in rural Oklahoma. Founded by the descendants of freed slaves and survivors in exodus from a hostile world, the patriarchal community of Ruby is built on righteousness, rigidly enforced moral law, and fear. But seventeen miles away, another group of exiles has gathered in a promised land of their own. And it is upon these women in flight from death and despair that nine male citizens of Ruby will lay their pain, their terror, and their murderous rage. “A fascinating story, wonderfully detailed. . . . The town is the stage for a profound and provocative debate.” —Los Angeles Times
Author: Jaleel Akhtar
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443861863
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 180
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Book Description
Dismemberment in the Fiction of Toni Morrison is a multifaceted study of Toni Morrison’s fiction. It investigates racism and the concomitant experiences of dismemberment in Morrison’s fiction from multiple perspectives, including history, psychology, and culture. Looking at dismemberment from multiple perspectives, rather than the more generic and abstract expression of fragmentation, likens the impact of racism on individuals to the splitting of bodies, amputation, phantom limbs and traumatic memories, and in more concrete and visceral terms. Morrison’s art of story-telling involves an interactive conversation from multiple perspectives, demanding more attentive participation from her readers in deconstructing the meaning of her narratives. Studying her fiction from multiple perspectives suggests various ways of examining the pernicious impact of racism which produces various forms of dismemberment in her characters. This investigation does this without giving prominence to one perspective at the expense of other equally relevant modes of interpretation. Morrison’s depiction of the trauma of racism on the psyche of her characters and the concomitant experiences of dismemberment has its roots in the historical and social realities of African Americans. The psychological impact of racism on Morrison’s characters requires viewing through the lens of the historical and social realities that play a significant role. Morrison enacts racial alienation and dismemberment as complex processes; it is consequently important to look at her project from multiple perspectives. Examining the lived reality of African Americans from only one perspective ignores dismemberment in the light of the socio-political and historical realities of African American experience in the United States, and entails reconsideration of the physical, historical, social and psychological realities. This investigation argues for the importance of combining these historical and psychological, as well as sociocultural, analyses of Morrison’s fiction in order to acquire a more rounded understanding of racism and its debilitating effects on the psyche. By situating Morrison’s fiction within a variety of discourses, this study offers a multifaceted, highly interdisciplinary framework for a more rewarding analysis of her fiction.
Author: David Coughlan
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137410248
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
This book examines representations of the specter in American twentieth and twenty-first-century fiction. David Coughlan’s innovative structure has chapters on Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, Marilynne Robinson, and Philip Roth alternating with shorter sections detailing the significance of the ghost in the philosophy of Jacques Derrida, particularly within the context of his 1993 text, Specters of Marx. Together, these accounts of phantoms, shadows, haunts, spirit, the death sentence, and hospitality provide a compelling theoretical context in which to read contemporary US literature. Ghost Writing in Contemporary American Fiction argues at every stage that there is no self, no relation to the other, no love, no home, no mourning, no future, no trace of life without the return of the specter—that is, without ghost writing.
Author: Lisa Kröger
Publisher: Quirk Books
ISBN: 1683691393
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
Meet the women writers who defied convention to craft some of literature’s strangest tales, from Frankenstein to The Haunting of Hill House and beyond. Frankenstein was just the beginning: horror stories and other weird fiction wouldn’t exist without the women who created it. From Gothic ghost stories to psychological horror to science fiction, women have been primary architects of speculative literature of all sorts. And their own life stories are as intriguing as their fiction. Everyone knows about Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, who was rumored to keep her late husband’s heart in her desk drawer. But have you heard of Margaret “Mad Madge” Cavendish, who wrote a science-fiction epic 150 years earlier (and liked to wear topless gowns to the theater)? If you know the astounding work of Shirley Jackson, whose novel The Haunting of Hill House was reinvented as a Netflix series, then try the psychological hauntings of Violet Paget, who was openly involved in long-term romantic relationships with women in the Victorian era. You’ll meet celebrated icons (Ann Radcliffe, V. C. Andrews), forgotten wordsmiths (Eli Colter, Ruby Jean Jensen), and today’s vanguard (Helen Oyeyemi). Curated reading lists point you to their most spine-chilling tales. Part biography, part reader’s guide, the engaging write-ups and detailed reading lists will introduce you to more than a hundred authors and over two hundred of their mysterious and spooky novels, novellas, and stories.
Author: Francis Stevens
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1804171719
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 207
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Book Description
Two adventurers, prospecting for gold in the jungles of Mexico, stumble across a lost Aztec city and cause an ancient evil to be unleashed. An early science fiction masterpiece written by Gertrude Barrows Bennett, writing as Francis Stevens. Discovering a lost city in the Mexican jungle, two adventurers embark on a terrifying journey. Disturbing ancient gods and nightmare creatures, they find a hidden civilization of Aztecs and bring dark magic into the modern world. With a potent cocktail of romance, revenge and swampish evil this book is one of the earliest examples of fantasy and remains an enthralling read. Gertrude Barrows Bennett, writing as Francis Stevens, is often regarded as the founder of dark fantasy and was admired by H.P. Lovecraft amongst many, with some ranking her alongside Mary Shelley in impact and imaginative power. Foundations of Feminist Fiction. The early 1900s saw a quiet revolution in literature dominated by male adventure heroes. Both men and women moved beyond the norms of the male gaze to write from a different gender perspective, sometimes with female protagonists, but also expressing the universal freedom to write on any subject whatsoever.
![Horror Literature through History [2 volumes] PDF](https://books.google.com/books/content/images/frontcover/GanOEAAAQBAJ?fife=w80-h100)
Author: Matt Cardin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1004
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Book Description
This two-volume set offers comprehensive coverage of horror literature that spans its deep history, dominant themes, significant works, and major authors, such as Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, and Anne Rice, as well as lesser-known horror writers. Many of today's horror story fans—who appreciate horror through movies, television, video games, graphic novels, and other forms—probably don't realize that horror literature is not only one of the most popular types of literature but one of the oldest. People have always been mesmerized by stories that speak to their deepest fears. Horror Literature through History shows 21st-century horror fans the literary sources of their favorite entertainment and the rich intrinsic value of horror literature in its own right. Through profiles of major authors, critical analyses of important works, and overview essays focused on horror during particular periods as well as on related issues such as religion, apocalypticism, social criticism, and gender, readers will discover the fascinating early roots and evolution of horror writings as well as the reciprocal influence of horror literature and horror cinema. This unique two-volume reference set provides wide coverage that is current and compelling to modern readers—who are of course also eager consumers of entertainment. In the first section, overview essays on horror during different historical periods situate works of horror literature within the social, cultural, historical, and intellectual currents of their respective eras, creating a seamless narrative of the genre's evolution from ancient times to the present. The second section demonstrates how otherwise unrelated works of horror have influenced each other, how horror subgenres have evolved, and how a broad range of topics within horror—such as ghosts, vampires, religion, and gender roles—have been handled across time. The set also provides alphabetically arranged reference entries on authors, works, and specialized topics that enable readers to zero in on information and concepts presented in the other sections.
Author: Bianca DelVillano
Publisher: ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press
ISBN: 3838257146
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
Ghostly Alterities analyses the meaning of ghostliness in contemporary Anglophone novels – Patricia Grace’s Baby No-Eyes (1998), Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), J. M. Coetzee’s Foe (1986), Vivienne Cleven’s Her Sister’s Eye (2002), Ben Okri’s The Famished Road (1991), Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road (1995) – in which the figure of the ghost is often entrusted with the task of questioning Western culture and history. After an introductory chapter which investigates Freud’s concept of the uncanny along with theoretical issues raised by Iain Chambers and Jacques Derrida, Ghostly Alterities discusses the novels from different critical orientations (postcolonialism, poststructuralism and psychoanalysis), presenting ghostliness as intersecting with three major themes: the problem of the spectre’s visibility and “bodily” nature; the particular melancholic state of mind the ghost can trigger which brings about a very special kind of (g)hospitality; the spectral nature of history and its relationship with the characters’ personal memory.
Author: Amy Branam Armiento
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 161146336X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 217
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Book Description
Edgar Allan Poe notoriously identified “the death . . . of a beautiful woman” as “the most poetical topic in the world.” Despite this cringeworthy claim, it is widely known that Poe drew creative inspiration from female authors and that women figure prominently among the artists and critics fascinated by the writer’s creative legacy. Filling a major gap in scholarship on Poe, this volume investigates the varied ways that women have influenced perceptions of Poe through biography, criticism, editorial work, and creative adaptation. Covering a timeframe from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, Poe and Women addresses a range of topics, including accounts of Poe written by female contemporaries, the scholarly efforts of women in establishing Poe’s worldwide reputation, and the revision of antebellum gender constructs in popular adaptations of Poe’s work. This collection will appeal not only to Poe specialists but also to anyone interested in the writer’s ongoing relevance to gender discussions inside and outside the academy.
Author: Katharine A. Burnett
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 080717162X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 311
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Book Description
Offering a compelling intervention in studies of antebellum writing, Katharine A. Burnett’s Cavaliers and Economists: Global Capitalism and the Development of Southern Literature, 1820–1860 examines how popular modes of literary production in the South emerged in tandem with the region’s economic modernization. In a series of deeply historicized readings, Burnett positions southern literary form and genre as existing in dialogue with the plantation economy’s evolving position in the transatlantic market before the Civil War. The antebellum southern economy comprised part of a global network of international commerce driven by a version of laissez-faire liberal capitalism that championed unrestricted trade and individual freedom to pursue profit. Yet the economy of the U.S. South consisted of large-scale plantations that used slave labor to cultivate staple crops, including cotton. Each individual plantation functioned as a racially and socially repressive community, a space that seemingly stood apart from the international economic networks that fueled southern capitalism. For writers from the South, fiction became a way to imagine the region as socially and culturally progressive, while still retaining hallmarks of “traditional” southern culture—namely plantation slavery—in the context of a rapidly changing global economy. Burnett excavates an elaborate network of transatlantic literary exchange, operating concurrently with the region’s economic expansion, in which southern writers adopted popular British genres, such as the historical romance and the seduction novel, as models for their own representations of the U.S. South. Each chapter focuses on a different genre, pairing largely under-studied southern texts with well-known British works. Ranging from the humorous sketch to the imperial adventure tale and the social problem novel, Cavaliers and Economists reveals how southern writers like Augusta Jane Evans, Johnson Jones Hooper, Maria McIntosh, William Gilmore Simms, and George Tucker reworked familiar literary forms to reinvent the South through fiction. By considering the intersection of economic history and literary genre, Cavaliers and Economists provides an expansive study of the means by which authors created southern literature in relation to global free market capitalism, showing that, in the process, they renegotiated and rejustified the institution of slavery.
