Twayne's masterwork studies

For decades after its first performance in 1904, Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard fomented controversy among producers, actors, critics, and audiences. Along with its intrinsic textual richness, linguistic power, and subtlety, the play is saturated with many different, apparently incompatible, elements; it constantly shifts from comedy to pathos, its language concomitantly oscillating from music hall vulgarity to prose poetry. Chekhov assigned a personal way of speaking to each character, divorcing consequence from action, cause from effect. Despite the controversy generated by its paradoxical nature, however, The Cherry Orchard has become a milestone in twentieth-century drama. . In this astute analysis of Chekhov's last play, Donald Rayfield argues that The Cherry Orchard can be best understood when read as a culmination of the dramatist's major plays, particularly The Seagull (1896) and Three Sisters (1901). Stressing that Chekhov the playwright is inseparable from Chekhov the story writer, Rayfield points up instances in which the author "reuses" material from such classic stories as "A Visit to Friends," "Panpipes," "The Black Monk," and "The Bride.". An engaging history of the how the play came to be - complete with citations from Chekhov's notebooks to show the parallels between his life and the lives of his characters - amplifies Rayfield's dissemination of the dramatist's themes and stylistics technique. Rayfield further uses Chekhov's letters to and from those involved in the initial production - the Moscow Arts Theater director Konstantin Stanislavsky; Chekhov's wife, the actress Olga Knipper; and various of Chekhov's contemporaries in the theater - to chronicle the play's evolution. The apparent contradiction of a play that is simultaneously comic and tragic is, Rayfield concludes, a fact of the modernist drama of Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, and Antonin Artaud. Rayfield's concise analysis is an essential companion to any reading of The Cherry Orchard, as it delineates the play's seminal role in the evolution of twentieth-century theater and its crucial position in Russian cultural history as both the culmination of all realist nineteenth-century fiction and the first masterpiece of a new, arguably symbolist or absurdist, literature.

The well-known and well-loved books that make up C.S. Lewis's "Chronicles of Narnia" have long held a prominent place on many a child's (and adult's) bookshelf. Since their publication in the 195Os, the books' depiction of the fantasy land of Narnia has inspired the wonder, delight, and imaginations of children around the world. More than just fairy tales, the stories show readers that all is not as it seems, that perseverance can bring forth great rewards, and that growth is a continual and unpredictable process. Most important, arguably, is the ongoing struggle between good and evil depicted in the "Chronicles.". These themes are displayed amid the experiences of several children, particularly Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter Pevensie. Beginning with the first book of the series, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), we follow the children as they magically enter the kingdom of Narnia for the first of many adventures there, including their meeting the memorable lion, Aslan. In the sequel, Prince Caspian, they help the prince and his army of Talking Beasts conquer the usurping Telemarines; the following novel, The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader," continues Caspian's story by recounting his voyage to the End of the World. The fourth book, The Silver Chair, returns to the theme of an evil witch, first explored in The Lion, while The Horse and His Boy details Narnia's near-invasion by the Calormenes. The Magician's Nephew accounts for the creation of Narnia, and the seventh tale, The Last Battle (1956), tells of Narnia's final days. Colin Manlove has carefully studied the tales and shows that they are patterned narratives with many complex, intertwined threads. He relates these narratives to Lewis's views on stories, and also sets Lewis's books in their literary context, both juvenile and adult. After a discussion of the critical receptions of the tales, Manlove supplies a full chapter on each book for in-depth analysis. Questions that may occur fleetingly to the casual reader, such as the matter of possible Christian imagery (most notably in Aslan's sacrificial death and resurrection), are examined fully to give the reader a wider scope of reference. Ultimately, Manlove contends that these stories mirror Lewis's view of the universe as both mysterious and complex.

Glancy provides a sourcebook for appreciating Dickens's masterwork.

Though her life was brief, the American poet and novelist Sylvia Plath (1932-63) exerted a profound influence on contemporary writers, particularly women writers of the sixties and seventies. Just as to her Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry Plath brought a decidedly feminist perspective, so too did she etch in her novel The Bell Jar a disturbing vision of life for young women in America at midcentury. The Bell Jar - based on Plath's own experiences as a student at Smith College, an intern at Mademoiselle, and a young woman battling for her own sanity amid societal mores of the times - was initially published in England under a pseudonym, its American publication stifled for years by the writer's family. When, however, the 1963 novel was finally released to U.S. audiences in 1971, it achieved both critical and popular success, and has since become a classic of feminist literature and a unique vehicle for better appreciating Plath's gifts. It is through a multifaceted lens that Linda Wagner-Martin examines The Bell Jar in this new study. Whereas past critical attention has centered on The Bell Jar as autobiography, Wagner-Martin transcends that approach, looking as well at the novel in its larger context of the social and historical forces shaping women's lives in America during the fifties and sixties. Thus eschewing a simplistic reading of the novel, the author plumbs issues of gender, genre, and narrative voice. Arguing that Plath's troubled personal history was the product of her struggle against contemporary social forces, Wagner-Martin reviews the writer's prior work and inspects earlier, partial versions of the novel; explores Plath's use of humor and sarcasm; traces the writer's representation of patriarchal structures in the novel; and ultimately places the novel squarely in the tradition of works about women at odds with a society dominated by patriarchal values. A brilliantly argued, eminently readable approach to this masterpiece, The Bell Jar: A Novel of the Fifties is certain to be lauded by scholars and students alike.

Published in 1919, Heartbreak House is an examination of the failings of the European leisure classes before World War I—failings that author George Bernard Shaw blamed for the war, and that he predicted would quickly lead to another, longer war. The play is set in an English country house, where representatives of every type of English society have gathered at the home of the seemingly-mad Captain Shotover. Hidebound aristocrats and cultured bohemians, wealthy capitalists and radical idealists, prim moralists and idle libertines, are all laid bare in one of Shaw’s bleakest and yet most absurd plays.