Robert C. Evans

Introducing students to the full range of critical approaches to the poetry of the period, Perspectives on World War I Poetry is an authoritative and accessible guide to the extraordinary variety of international poetic responses to the Great War of 1914-18. Each chapter covers one or more major poets, and guides the reader through close readings of poems from a full range of theoretical perspectives, including: • Classical • Formalist • Psychoanalytic • Marxist • Structuralist • Reader-response • New Historicist • Feminist Including the full text of each poem discussed and poetry from British, North American and Commonwealth writers, the book explores the work of such poets as: Thomas Hardy, A.E. Housman, Alys Fane Trotter, Eva Dobell, Charlotte Mew, John McCrae, Edward Thomas, Eleanor Farjeon, Margaret Sackville, Sara Teasdale, Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, Teresa Hooley, Isaac Rosenberg, Leon Gellert, Marian Allen, Vera Brittain, Margaret Postgate Cole, Wilfred Owen, E.E. Cummings and David Jones.

Perspectives on World War I Poetry

Presents a variety of new essays on Kate Chopin's The Awakening. This volume surveys previous criticism of the work but also offers a variety of new approaches from various critical perspectives. Essays relate the novel to such topics as race, humour, Chopin's life, impressionist painting, irony and close reading, tourism and landscapes, regionalism and naturalism, and folly and engendered discourse.

The Awakening

Salem Press

A Tale of Two Cities has long been valued as one of Charles Dickens's most important and fascinating novels. This volume explores the novel from various deliberately diverse perspectives, setting it in historical, critical, and aesthetic contexts and examining how its impact has been kept alive to the present day.

Critical Insights: a Tale of Two Cities

This volume presents four original survey essays that provide the reader with a useful framework for studying Tan's novel. The first essay begins by surveying the critical reception of Tan's works, particularly Joy Luck. Other essays consider the mechanics of Tan's novel, including structure, narration, style, and themes, and compare and contrast Tan's book with Michael Cunningham's The Hours. Previously published essays include an examination of the traditional Chinese beliefs found in the novel, a comparison of The Joy Luck Club to The Kitchen God's Wife, and two interviews with the author.

Critical Insights: The Joy Luck Club

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest;.

Critical Insights

The Book Thief

Richard Harp

A Companion to Brian Friel

Markus Zusak's 2005 novel The Book Thief became an instant international best-seller, was translated into over 60 languages, and was made into a major motion picture. Set during one of the most important places (Nazi Third Reich) and periods (WW II) in twentieth-century history, the novel emphasizes the value of family, love, literature, and friendship and the ways these influences help people cope during the darkest times. This volume explores Zusak's work from diverse perspectives, setting it in various contexts and examining the traits that make it a significant work of literature.

Critical Insights: the Book Thief

Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, although well received in its own day, was largely forgotten until the 1970s. The same thing was true of its author, who died in abject poverty. Fortunately, both this novel and most of Hurston's other works were eventually rediscovered, and Their Eyes is now seen as one of the most important books in twentieth-century American literature. This volume explores the book from numerous and diverse perspectives, including race, gender, and class; place it in a variety of historical and intellectual contexts; and give full attention to its remarkable artistry.

Critical Insights: Their Eyes Were Watching God

A great starting point for students seeking an introduction to Tim O'Brien and the critical discussions surrounding his work.

Guiding students through poems by major Early Modernwriters, this book introduces students to major theoretical approaches toRenaissance poetry, from classical theory to ecocriticism.

Perspectives on Renaissance Poetry

Othello has long been, and remains, one of Shakespeare's most popular works. It is a favourite work of scholars, students, and general readers alike. Perhaps more than any other of Shakespeare's tragedies, this one seems to speak most clearly to contemporary readers and audiences, partly because it deals with such pressing modern issues as race, gender, multiculturalism, and the ways love, jealousy, and misunderstanding can affect relations between romantic partners. The play also features Iago, one of Shakespeare's most mesmerizing and puzzling villains. This guide offers students and scholars an introduction to the play's critical and performance history, including notable stage productions and film versions. It includes a keynote chapter outlining major areas of current research on the play and four new critical essays. Finally, a guide to critical, web-based and production-related resources and an annotated bibliography provide a basis for further research.

Othello: A Critical Reader

An ideal companion for students and scholars, covering current critical and performance perspectives on this widely-studied Shakespearean tragedy, with useful details of internet resources.

Philip Larkin is widely regarded as one of the greatest English poets of the twentieth century. As such, there is a vast amount of literary criticism surrounding his work. This Readers' Guide provides a comprehensive and accessible overview of the key reactions to Larkin’s poetry. Using a chronological structure, Robert C. Evans charts critical responses to Larkin’s work from his arrival on the British literary scene in the 1950s to the decades after his death. This includes analyses of critical material from around the world, making this an excellent guide for all students of Larkin.

Philip Larkin

Kimberly Barron

Summaries of Modern Monographs

Ben Jonson's Major Plays

"In Habits of Mind, his fourth book on Ben Jonson, Robert C. Evans turns to the reading habits of one of the best-read and most-learned of all the great English poets and discovers that the impact of Jonson's reading on his own art was both immediate and strong." "Studying Jonson's markings can provide unique insights into his own thinking and creativity, Evans postulates, because the poet's reading was not a distraction, but central to his inspiration and artistic development." "The marked books that Evans discusses are a deliberately mixed lot, and the methods used in discussing them are also intentionally diverse. The chosen works represent differing periods, genres, styles, and thematic concerns, thus suggesting the impressive range of Jonson's interests as well as the continuities that seem to underlie them."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Evidence and Effects of Ben Jonson's Reading

Habits of Mind

The first chronological overview of O'Connor criticism from the publication of her first novel, Wise Blood, in 1952 to the present.

Searchers and Discoverers

The Critical Reception of Flannery O'Connor, 1952-2017

Collects sixteen essays examining the work, covering such topics as artistic aspects of the text, its critical reception, and the use of repetitions and parallels in the work.

Robert C. Evans

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