Modern critical views

This society has structured itself so as to be unaware of what it owes in both the positive and negative sense to the condition of inhumanity that it has imposed upon a great mass of its citizens. The fact that many whites refuse to recognize this is responsible for much of the anger erupting among young blacks today. It makes them furious that whites respond to their complaints with, "Yes, but I had nothing to do with any of that," or who reply to their demands for equal opportunity in a racially rigged society with, "We're against a quota system because we made it on our individual merits" -- because this not only sidesteps a pressing reality, but it is only partially true. Perhaps they did make it on their own, but if that's true the way was made easier because their parents did not have to contend with my parents, who were ruled out of the competition. - Ralph Ellison - Introduction.

‘Every successful novelist must be more or less a poet, even though he may never have written a line of verse. The quality of imagination is absolutely indispensable to him.... Smollett was a poet of distinction!’

A collection of critical essays on Malamud and his works. Also includes a chronology of events in his life.

A century ago Tennyson had begun to be dismissed as a poet whose work embodied everything the modern world was looking to leave behind. He still seems to readers to embody the substance of the Victorian era more fully than any other poet-but nowadays that is again counted in his favour. Critics continue to find layers of complexity in poems once thought simplistic-while appreciating with fresh ears Tennyson's aural mastery. This new edition includes the two long poems "In Memoriam" and "Maud: A Monodrama" in their entirety, all the short poems for which Tennyson remains famous and a generous selection of his lesser-known poetry, together with a concise introduction to the poet and his work and substantial headnotes for "In Memoriam", "Maud" and "Idylls of the King". Unlike other editions that provide a selection of Tennyson's work, this one includes both marginal glosses of obscure or archaic words and phrases and extensive annotations at the bottom of each page. Appendices of visual material are also included.

A collection of critical essays on major sixteenth and seventeenth-century English dramatists and their works.

Reviews the life and work of the American writer whose "Grapes of Wrath" portrayed farmers during the Depression and won him a Pulitzer and a Nobel Prize.

Current criticisms of Salinger--one is on his heroes, another concerns his interest in Zen Buddhism, etc.

A collection of critical essays on the fiction of Doris Lessing, arranged in chronological order of original publication.

A selection of criticism, arranged in chronological order of publication, devoted to the writings of Vladimir Nabokov.

A collection of ten critical essays on the novels of Sinclair Lewis, arranged in chronological order of original publication.

A collection of nine critical essays on "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin, arranged in chronological order of their original publication.

Critical essays on the works of the author of "The Waste Land," "Murder in the Cathedral," and "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats."

A precursor of the twentieth century's feminist authors, Kate Chopin (1850–1904) wrote short stories and novels for children and adults. The St. Louis native lived in New Orleans for a dozen years and used Louisiana's Creole culture as an evocative setting for most of her tales. Many of Chopin's stories were well ahead of their time, and she achieved widespread acclaim only after her death. This concise introduction to Chopin's works features the complete text of The Awakening, her best-known and most-studied novel, as well as an earlier novel, At Fault, and the essay "My Writing Method." A generous selection of short stories includes "Lilacs," "The Kiss," "A Respectable Woman," "A Pair of Silk Stockings," and 25 others. Dover Original.

Essays to help you understand and appreciate the works of Philip Roth.

This new biography, based on the recent discovery of hundreds of letters and personal papers, challenges the legend of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's early family life and delivers an unforgettable portrait of this talented and tormented writer's marriage, exile in Italy, and vibrant creative life. Few poets have captured the essence of love as beautifully as Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Sonnets from the Portuguese or in the famous love letters she and Robert Browning wrote to one another. But she was also a woman of great cerebral power. An early feminist, influenced by Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women, Elizabeth Barrett Browning championed the causes of women in such poems as "Aurora Leigh." She wrote political poetry, translated classics from Greek and Latin, and lived an intellectual life of brilliant vitality from an astonishingly young age.

A collection of eight critical essays on Roethke's poetry arranged in chronological order of publication.

A collection of nine critical essays on the work of James Dickey, arranged in chronological order of original publication.

A collection of criticial essays on Montaigne and his works arranged in chronological order of publication.

Provides a representative selection of the best critical essays published on his work.

A collection of critical essays on English poetry during the Age of Sensibility and the Sublime, the half-century between the death of Alexander Pope in 1744 and the death of Robert Burns in 1796.

A collection of nineteen critical essays on the Chilean writer and his work, arranged chronologically in the order of their original publication.

A collection of critical essays on this well-known American writer and her works.

A collection of critical essays on the Russian writer and his works, arranged in chronological order of original publication.

Provides a representative selection of criticism available on some of the principal 17th-century English poets.