The Modern Spirit

Fülszöveg

In this series of related essays Professor Langbaum, author of that important work The Poetry of Experience, seeks to illustrate the continuity of nineteenth and twentieth century Literature. By 'modern' in the title of the book he means the post-Enlightenment tradition which links these two centuries. He begins with a call to order—the plea that we must make up our minds exactly what literary criticism should be doing today. This essay is followed by studies of the evolution of soul in Wordsworth's poetry', the Victorian idea of culture, Browning's approach to myth, and a masterly analysis of the structure of In Memóriám. As we move into the twentieth century to the latest poets and novelists, we see changing ideas about nature, a continuing but altering interest in questions of identity, and a developing concern with the cycUcal view of history and with myth and the tragicomic attitude that accompanies the mythical view of life. In a concluding essay on Shakespeare's The... Tovább

Fülszöveg

In this series of related essays Professor Langbaum, author of that important work The Poetry of Experience, seeks to illustrate the continuity of nineteenth and twentieth century Literature. By 'modern' in the title of the book he means the post-Enlightenment tradition which links these two centuries. He begins with a call to order—the plea that we must make up our minds exactly what literary criticism should be doing today. This essay is followed by studies of the evolution of soul in Wordsworth's poetry', the Victorian idea of culture, Browning's approach to myth, and a masterly analysis of the structure of In Memóriám. As we move into the twentieth century to the latest poets and novelists, we see changing ideas about nature, a continuing but altering interest in questions of identity, and a developing concern with the cycUcal view of history and with myth and the tragicomic attitude that accompanies the mythical view of life. In a concluding essay on Shakespeare's The Tempest, Professor Langbaum takes the contemporary taste for Shakespeare's last plays as an appreciation of this view of life, which he has previously discussed in essays on Browning, Yeats and Forster.
The Modern Spirit is the work of a critic of exceptional ingenuity and vitality.
Robert Langbaum is James Branch Cabell Professor of English and American Literature at the University of Virginia.
tfi
william walsh A Manifold Voice
Studies in Commonwealth \
Literature
Times Literary Supplement 'This is unusually good criticism so agreeable to read and so stimulating. The authors being discussed here might well find that for once they were learning something from a critic; such is his faculty for entering into a writer's intention with little short of a novelist's empathy, and yet remaining far enough outside to be able to say something at once new and worth saying.'
WALTER ALLEN
'A most attractive collection of essays It is marked by a graceful prose style, warm but discriminating sympathy and admirable critical sense. A book which ought to be read by everyone interested in English writing wherever it comes from.'
The Economist
'A most welcome book. , . . The criticism is serious but not solemn, penetrating but not sanctimonious. Professor Walsh has a delight in clearcut, concrete prose; in addition, he pursues themes with care and fidelity.' 35s (L1.75) net
Literary Criticism
RICHARD HOGGART Speaking to Each Other Vol. 1: About Society Vol. 2: About Literature
ANGUS WILSON
'His essays seem to me to be admirable in their thorougliness, tionesty and constant reference to his own personal concerns. Mr. Hoggart is so splendid and steadfast a true radical that I think we may demand of him a third volume about his own personal commitments in the matter of life's style.' DENNIS POTTER
'Richard Hoggart is perhaps the most acute, sympathetic and open-minded observer of such stumbling or wistful ways of communication. He is one of the fcw Englishmen who look straight at what they are writing about. . . . These essays are as instantly recognizable in their essential honesty, decency and uncluttered directness as are George Orwell's.' MALCOLM BRADBURY
'. . . . a profoundly valuable illumination. A power of conviction runs through this lively group of essays, a power that derives from the bodying forth of a serious, responsible and above all considerate critical decency.' Vol. 1: 30s {L1.50) net Vol. 2: 35s (L1.75) net
MARK SCHORER The World We Imagine Selected Essays
DEREK STANFORD
'I have never seen a critic so calmly just in his summing-up of Women in Love. He leads us to approach with interest works which we have not hitherto read, or to re-approach, with newly alerted expectations, works which we have read previously.' The Scotsman
'In these widely ranging essays Professor Schorer discusses the form and content of the novel. . . . The result is stimulating. . . . This is a profound book . amply rewarding.'
42s (L2.10) net
CHATTO & WINDUS Vissza