Literary criticism Archives

An Introduction to Literary Studies

July 2, 2009 by Roy Johnson

how to understand, analyse, and write about literature

An Introduction to Literary Studies is aimed at serious students of English and American literature at college and university level. It’s designed to show you how to approach studying literature in a practical and theoretical manner, how to understand some of the fundamental concepts of literary studies, and how to articulate your understanding by writing academic essays. Mario Klarer begins by looking at some of the very basic issues – what is fiction? what is a poem? and what are the parts of these genres we look at when we study literature?

He examines character, plot, point of view, then metaphor, imagery, and symbols. There’s also a chapter on drama too, for those who still think this is related to literary studies. Next comes a section on theoretical approaches to literature. This is where most students will need help. That’s because the developments of critical theory in the post-war period have been bewildering, to say the least. He touches on rhetoric, formalism, structuralism, semiotics, and deconstruction, Marxism, feminism, and reader-response theory. All his explanations are given in a straightforward manner and he covers definitions of key terms such as ‘literature’, ‘text’, and ‘author’ – which might seem unproblematic, until you look below the surface.

There’s a full chapter on how to write a scholarly paper, lots of suggestions for further reading, and a glossary of terms used in both literary studies and the consideration of narratives in other genres such as film.

This latest second edition fully updates the highly successful first edition to provide greater guidance for online research and to reflect recent changes to MLA guidelines for referencing and quoting sources.

So, in a sense, this book is alerting students to the issues which can be considered in the practice of literary studies. It is showing what is possible, alerting you to themes, theories, and approaches you might not have considered, and pointing you towards sources of further information – which is just what an ‘introduction’ should do.

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Mario Klarer, An Introduction to Literary Studies, Andover: Routledge, 2nd edn, 2004, pp.173, ISBN: 0415333822

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Charles Dickens critical guide

June 26, 2009 by Roy Johnson

introductory study, background, and resources

This is an introductory survey of Dickens and the major parts of his work written for students and general readers who perhaps want to know more about this perennially popular novelist. Donald Hawes begins Charles Dickens – A Critical Guide with a sketch of Dickens’s life – the hardships he suffered as a child, his early success as a writer with Sketches by Boz, and then his rapid rise to be the most successful writer in both England and America.

It’s easy to forget Dickens’s astonishing productivity: he regularly composed more than one novel at once, wrote and published his own weekly newspaper, and contributed to other people’s journals as well. This is to say nothing of his prodigious physical energy: walks of up to forty miles a day taken at high speed.

And for all the close association with Englishness and London in particular, he also travelled widely in Europe, living in France and Italy on a regular basis.

What follows is chapters which offer accounts of his major works, alternating with studies of themes and issues important to his work as a whole.

The first give potted plot summaries as well as critical insights which will be particularly useful for beginners. The latter explore recurrent symbols and those topics which Dickens made his own – for example nineteenth century London and its relation to the labyrinthine system of jurisprudence which permeates Bleak House, or the prisons, most notably in Little Dorrit.

Donald Hawes clearly knows Dickens’s work inside out, and all his arguments are illustrated by well-chosen details from the best known works. In most cases he gives some notion of their contemporary reception, plus an account of how these reputations have lasted into the twentieth century.

There’s a very good chapter on Dickens’s unforgettable rogues, villains, and comic masterpieces, analysing why they so brilliantly conceived and executed. Another on the theatre places Dickens’s enthusiasm for the genre firmly in the realm of what we would now call ‘popular culture’ – since at that time, in mid nineteenth century there was little else the lower orders could enjoy. The same was also true of Dickens’s public readings from his own works – which both made him rich and probably shortened his life.

I hadn’t previously realised just how much Dickens’s friend John Forster had played in the composition, revision, and editing of his writing, but there’s a good chapter on Dickens’s relationship with his friends and contemporaries.

Other topics considered include prisons, education, doctors and hospitals, social class, Christmas, and even a section on animals – especially dogs and ravens (both of which Dickens possessed).

So, Hawes covers all the major novels, the stories, and some of the occasional writing. With this and the thematic chapters, plus an extensive bibliography of further reading, there’s everything here for someone who wants a comprehensive departure point for further Dickens studies.

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Donald Hawes, Charles Dickens, London: Continuum, 2007, pp.167, ISBN 0826489648

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Charles Dickens criticism

May 6, 2015 by Roy Johnson

annotated bibliography of criticism and comment

Charles Dickens criticism is a bibliography of critical comment on Dickens and his works, with details of each publication and a brief description of its contents. The details include active web links to Amazon where you can buy the books, often in a variety of formats – new, used, and as Kindle eBooks and print-on-demand reissues. The listings are arranged in alphabetical order of author.

The list includes new books and older publications which may now be considered rare. It also includes versions of older texts which are much cheaper than the original. Others (including some new books) are often sold off at rock bottom prices. Whilst compiling these listings a hardback copy of Fred Kaplan’s Charles Dickens: A Biography was available at Amazon for one penny.

Dickens – Peter Ackroyd, London: Mandarin, 1991. Presents an illustrated introduction to the public and private life of the popular Victorian novelist.

Dickens at Work – John Butt and Jane Tillotson, London: Methuen, 1957. Illustrates what modes of planning Dickens evolved as best suited to his genius and to the demands of serial publication, monthly or weekly; how he responded to the events of the day; and how he yet managed to combine the freshness of this ‘periodical’, almost journalistic approach with the art of the novel.

The Violent Effigy: A Study in Dickens’ Imagination – John Carey, London: Faber and Faber, 2008. This study sees Dickens as not a moralist or social commentator but as an anarchic comic genius, who was drawn irresistibly to the sinister and grotesque – murderers, frauds and public executions, bottled babies, wooden legs, walking coffins, corpses, umbrellas, waxworks, and living furniture.

Dickens: The Critical Heritage – Philip Collins (ed), London: Routledge, 1982. A collection of reviews and critical essays which trace the development of Dickens’ reputation as a novelist from his original publications up to the late twentieth century.

Dickens and Crime – P.A.W. Collins, London: Macmillan, 1965.

Dickens and His Readers – G.H. Ford, Norton, 1965. Attempts to explain the fluctuations in Dickens’ critical and popular reputation.

The Dickens Critics – George Ford and Lauriat Lane (eds). New York: Cornell University Press, 1961.

The Life of Charles Dickens – John Forster, Benediction Classics, 2011. The first comprehensive biography, written by his contemporary and friend.

Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women – Jenny Hartley, London: Methuen, 2009. An account of the refuge Dickens created with the financial backing of the heiress Angela Burdett Courts, Chronicles cast-off women, pickpockets, prostitutes, abandoned children, and others from the darkest streets of London.

Who’s Who in Dickens – Donald Hawes, London: Routledge, 2001. Contains a physical and psychological profile of each character, a critical look at his characters by past and present influential commentators and over forty illustrations of major characters drawn by Dickens’ contemporaries.

The Dickens World – Humphrey House, Oxford University Press, 1960. Minor works and journals as well as the novels are used to provide critical analysis of Dickens’ prowess as a reporter of Victorian life.

Dickens’s Villains: Melodrama, Character, Popular Culture – Juliet John, Oxford University Press, 2003. This interdisciplinary study locates the rationale for Dickens’s melodramatic characters in his political commitment to the principle of cultural inclusivity and his related resistance to ‘psychology’.

Dickens and Mass Culture – Juliet John, Oxford University Press, 2013. Examines Dickens’s cultural vision and practice – his model of authorship, journalism, public readings, relations with America, and the commercial, cultural, and political aspects of Dickens’s populist vision and legacy.

Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph – Edgar Johnson, Viking Press, 1977. This is universally regarded as the definitive biography and a highpoint in critical scholarship.

The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens – John O. Jordan, Cambridge University Press, 2001. Contains fourteen specially-commissioned chapters by leading international scholars, who provide diverse but complementary approaches to the full span of Dickens’s work, with particular focus on his major fiction.

Dickens: A Biography – Fred Kaplan, William Morrow & Co, 1988. Well regarded critical biography by a Dickens specialist.

Dickens and his Illustrators – Frederick G. Kitton, Emerson Publishing, 2013. Detailed studies of the illustrators who worked with Dickens, examining the relationships between author and artists, drawing on correspondence between them and reproducing preparatory sketches.

Dickens the Novelist – F.R. Leavis and Q.D. Leavis, London: Chatto and Windus, 1970. In seven typically robust and uncompromising chapters, the Leavises grapple with the evaluation of a writer who was still open to dismissal as a mere entertainer, a caricaturist not worthy of discussion in the same breath as Henry James.

Charles Dickens: The Major Novels – John Lucas, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992. This study of five major novels by Dickens looks at the tensions between the private and public aspect of his work.

A Companion to Dickens – David Paroissien, Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Includes original essays by leading Dickensian scholars on each of Dickens’s fifteen novels, and puts his work into its literary, historical, and social contexts.

Charles Dickens: Critical Issues – Lyne Pykett, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Looks at the author as a Victorian ‘man of letters’, and explores his cultural and critical impact both on the definition of the novel in the nineteenth century and the subsequent development of the form in the twentieth.

Authors in Context: Charles Dickens – Andrew Sanders, Oxford University Press, 2009. Explores Dickens’s interest in the urban phenomenon which so marks nineteenth-century culture, and looks at the vital interconnection between his life and his art.

The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens – Paul Schlicke (ed), Oxford University Press, 2011. Features more than 500 articles, throwing new and often unexpected light on the most familiar of Dickens’s works, and exploring the experiences, events, and literature on which he drew. There is also a chronology of Dickens’ life, a list of characters in his works, a list of entries by theme, a family tree, three maps, and an invaluable bibliography.

Dickens and the City – F.S. Schwarzbach, Athlone Press, 1979. Traces the fascinating and often dramatic relationship of the novels to the ever changing Victorian urban scene. The novels emerge not only as valuable historical documents, astonishing in their accuracy of detail, but as a unique contribution to the growth of modern urban culture.

Charles Dickens – Michael Slater, Yale University Press, 2011. The core focus is Dickens’ career as a writer and professional author, covering not only his big novels but also his phenomenal output of other writing–letters, journalism, shorter fiction, plays, verses, essays, writings for children, travel books, speeches, and scripts for his public readings,

The Narrative Art of Charles Dickens – Harvey Peter Sucksmith, Oxford University Press, 1970.

Going Astray: Dickens and London – Jeremy Tambling, London: Routledge, 2008. Drawing on all Dickens’ published writings (including the journalism but concentrating on the novels), this study considers the author’s kaleidoscopic characterisations of London: as prison and as legal centre; as the heart of empire and of traumatic memory; as the place of the uncanny; as an old curiosity shop.

Charles Dickens: A Life – Claire Tomalin, London: Penguin, 2012. Highly regarded critical biography by award-winning writer.

Dickens and Religion – Dennis Walder, London: Routledge, 2007. Dickens’s religion is shown to be that of a great popular writer, who created a unique kind of fiction, and a unique relationship with his readers, by the absorption and transformation of less respectable contemporary forms, from fairy-tale and German romance to tract and print.

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Complete Critical Guide to D.H.Lawrence

May 22, 2009 by Roy Johnson

biography, guidance notes, and literary criticism

D.H.Lawrence is not an easy writer to categorise. We think of him mainly as a novelist – but he is equally influential (if not so highly regarded) as a poet and a writer of novellas and short stories. He also wrote plays, but these tend to be overlooked in favour of his fiction. This guide to his work comes from a new series by Routledge which offers comprehensive but single-volume introductions to major English writers. They are aimed at students of literature, but are accessible to general readers who might like to deepen their understanding. The approach taken could not be more straightforward.

Part one is a potted biography of Lawrence, placing his life and work in a relatively neutral socio-historical context. Thus we get his early influences and his complex relations with women; but we are also nursed through an introduction to the literary Modernist movement of which he formed an important part. Part two provides a synoptic view of Lawrence’s stories, novels, and poetry.

The works are described in outline, and then their main themes illuminated. This is followed by pointers towards the main critical writings on these texts and issues.

Part three deals with criticism of Lawrence’s work. This is presented in chronological order – from contemporaries such as T.S. Eliot and E.M. Forster to critics of the present day who tend to focus on Lawrence’s psychological insights. Feminist writers have been particularly critical of what they see as misogyny in Lawrence’s work. .

The book ends with a commendably thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Lawrence journals.

An excellent starting point for students who are new to Lawrence’s work – and a refresher course for those who would like to keep up to date with criticism.

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Fiona Becket, The Complete Critical Guide to D. H. Lawrence, London: Routledge, 2002, pp.186, ISBN 0415202523

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Complete Critical Guide to Thomas Hardy

June 26, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Biography, guidance notes, and criticism of Hardy

This comes from a new series by publishers Routledge which offers comprehensive but single-volume introductions to major English writers. They are aimed at students of literature, but are accessible to general readers who might like to deepen their understanding. The approach taken by the Complete Critical Guide to Thomas Hardy could not be more straightforward.

Part one is a potted biography of Hardy, placing his life and work in a relatively neutral socio-historical context. Thus we get his early influences and ambitions, his rise to fame as a novelist, and then his switch to poetry in later life. The study does not shy away from the difficulties he had in his first marriage and his second marriage to a woman forty years younger than himself.

Part two provides a synoptic view of Hardy’s stories, novels, plays, and poetry. The works are described in outline, and then their main themes illuminated. This is followed by pointers towards the main critical writings on these texts and issues.

Hardy is not an easy writer to categorise. We think of him mainly as a novelist – but he is equally influential (if not so highly regarded) as a poet and a writer of novellas and short stories.

Part three deals with criticism of Hardy’s work. This is presented in chronological order – from contemporaries such as D.H. Lawrence to critics of the present day, with the focus on feminist and gender criticism, Marxist, and psychoanalytic criticism.

The book ends with a commendably thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Hardy journals.

An excellent starting point for students who are new to Hardy’s work – and a refresher course for those who would like to keep up to date with criticism.

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Geoffrey Harvey, The Complete Critical Guide to Thomas Hardy, London: Routledge, 2003, pp.228, ISBN 0415234921

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DH Lawrence critical essays

September 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

criticism, novels, poetry, stories

These collections of essays and commentary often provide the best evidence of the state of D.H.Lawrence criticism at the time of their publication. The introductions in these works can also provide useful perspectives on Lawrence criticism – especially those in Hoffman/Moore (1953), Spilka (1963), Bloom (1986), and Jackson/Jackson (1988).

Collections of Essays

Frederick J Hoffman and Harry T Moore (eds), The Achievement of D.H.Lawrence, 1953.

Harry T Moore (ed), A D.H.Lawrence Miscellany, 1959.

Modern Fiction Studies 5, (1959) [DHL Number]

Mark Spilka (ed), D.H.Lawrence: A Collection of Critical Essays, 1963.

Ronald Draper (ed), D.H.Lawrence: The Critical Heritage, 1970.

W T Andrews (ed), Critics on D.H.Lawrence, 1971.

Harry Coombes (ed), D.H.Lawrence: A Critical Anthology, 1973.

Leo Hamalian (ed), D.H.Lawrence: A Collection of Criticism, 1973.

Stephen Spender (ed), D.H.Lawrence: Novelist, Poet, Prophet, 1973.

Andor Gomme (ed), D.H.Lawrence: A Critical Study of the Major Novels, 1978.

Anne Smith (ed), Lawrence and Women, 1978.

Robert B Partlow and Harry T Moore (eds), D.H.Lawrence: The Man Who Lived, 1979.

Peter Balbert and Phillip L Marcus (eds), D.H.Lawrence: A Centenary Consideration, 1985.

Jeffrey Meyers (ed), D.H.Lawrence and Tradition, 1985.

Harold Bloom (ed), D.H.Lawrence: Modern Critical Views, 1986.

Christopher Heywood (ed), D.H.Lawrence: New Studies, 1987.

Jeffrey Meyers, (ed) The Legacy of D.H.Lawrence: New Essays, 1987.

Dennis and Fleda Jackson (eds), Critical Essays on D.H.Lawrence, 1988.

Gamini Salgado and G K Das (eds), The Spirit of D.H.Lawrence: Centenary Studies, 1988.

Peter Preston and Peter Hoare (eds), Lawrence in the Modern World, 1989.

Keith Brown (ed), Rethinking Lawrence, 1990.

Michael Squires and Keith Cushman (eds), The Challenge of D.H.Lawrence, 1990.

Aruna Sitesh (ed), D.H.Lawrence: An Anthology of Recent Criticism, 1990.

Peter Widdowson (ed), D.H.Lawrence, [Longman Critical Readers] 1992.

The Complete Critical Guide to D. H. Lawrence is a good introduction to Lawrence criticism. Includes a potted biography of Lawrence, an outline of the stories, novels, plays, and poetry, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from contemporaries T.S. Eliot and E.M. Forster to critics of the present day. Also includes a thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Lawrence journals.

Other genres

Tom Marshall, The Psychic Mariner…The Poems of D.H.Lawrence, 1970.

Sandra M Gilbert, Acts of Attention: The Poems of D.H.Lawrence, 1972.

M J Lockwood, Thinking In Poetry: A Study of the Poems of D.H.Lawrence, 1987. [This book contains a comprehensive bibliography of criticism of Lawrence’s poetry, in books, articles, and reviews]

A Banerjee, D.H.Lawrence’s Poetry: Demon Liberated, 1991.

Sylvia Sklar, The Plays of D.H.Lawrence, 1975.

INDIVIDUAL PROSE WORKS

Sons and Lovers

J.W.Tedlock (ed), Sons and Lovers: Sources and Criticism, 1965.

Julian Moynahan (ed), Sons and Lovers: Viking Critical Edition, 1968.

Gamini Salgado (ed), Sons and Lovers: A Casebook, 1969.

Judith Farr (ed) Twentieth-century Interpretations of Sons and Lovers, 1970.

Brian Finney, D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1990.

Michael Black, D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Rick Rylance (ed), Sons and Lovers: A New Casebook, 1996.

The Rainbow and Women in Love

Colin Clarke (ed), The Rainbow and Women in Love: A Casebook, 1969.

Stephen Miko (ed), Twentieth-century Interpretations of Women in Love, 1969.

Mark Kinkead-Weekes (ed), Twentieth-century Interpretations of The Rainbow, 1971.

P.T.Whelan, Myth and Magic in The Rainbow and Women in Love, 1988.

Duane Edwards, The Rainbow: A Search for New Life, 1990.

Charles L.Ross, Women in Love: A Novel of Mythic Realism, 1992.

[both these books appear in the Twayne Masterwork Series]

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

C.H.Rolfe, The Trial of Lady Chatterley, 1960.

Derek Britton, Lady Chatterley: The Making of the Novel, 1988.

The Short Stories

Kingsley Widmer, The Art of Perversity: D.H.Lawrence’s Shorter Fiction, 1962.

Keith Cushman, D.H.Lawrence at Work: The Emergence of the Prussian Officer Stories, 1978.

J.Temple, The definition of innocence: the short stories of D.H.Lawrence, 1979.

D.H.Lawrence – web links

D.H.Lawrence at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews, study guides, videos, bibliographies, critical studies, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts of the novels, stories, travel writing, and poetry – available in a variety of formats.

D.H.Lawrence at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, publishing history, the Lady Chatterley trial, critical reputation, bibliography, archives, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations of Lawrence’s work for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors, actors, production, box office, trivia, and even quizzes.

D.H.Lawrence archive at the University of Nottingham
Biography, further reading, textual genetics, frequently asked questions, his local reputation, research centre, bibliographies, and lists of holdings.

D.H.Lawrence and Eastwood
Nottinhamshire local enthusiast web site featuring biography, historical and recent photographs of the Eastwood area and places associated with Lawrence.

The World of D.H.Lawrence
Yet another University of Nottingham web site featuring biography, interactive timeline, maps, virtual tour, photographs, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence Heritage
Local authority style web site, with maps, educational centre, and details of lectures, visits, and forthcoming events.

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DH Lawrence critical studies

September 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

in chronological order of publication

Books on D.H.Lawrence

Stephen Potter, D.H.Lawrence: A First Study, 1930.

John Middleton Murry, Son of Woman: The Story of D.H.Lawrence, 1931.

Catherine Carswell, The Savage Pilgrimage: A Narrative of D.H.Lawrence, 1932.

Frederick Carter, D.H.Lawrence and the Body Mystical, 1932.

Anais Nin, D.H.Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study, Paris: Edward W. Titus, 1932.

Horace Gregory, Pilgrim of the Apocalypse: A Critical Study of D.H.Lawrence, 1933.

William York Tindall, D.H.Lawrence and Susan His Cow, 1939.

William Tiverton [Martin Jarrett-Kerr], D.H.Lawrence and Human Existence, 1951.

Mary Freeman, D.H.Lawrence A Basic Study of His Ideas, 1955.

F.R.Leavis, D.H.Lawrence: Novelist, London: Chatto and Windus, 1955.

Mark Spilka, The Love Ethic of D.H.Lawrence, 1955.

Graham Hough, The Dark Sun: A Study of D.H.Lawrence, New York: Capricorn Books, 1956.

Eliseo Vivas, D.H.Lawrence: The Failure and the Triumph of Art, 1960.

Kingsley Widmer, The Art of Perversity: D.H.Lawrence’s Shorter Fiction, 1962.

Eugene Goodheart, The Utopian Vision of D.H.Lawrence, 1963.

Julian Moynahan, The Deed of Life: The Novels and Tales of D.H.Lawrence, 1963.

George Panichas, Adventure in Consciousness: Lawrence’s Religious Quest, 1964.

Helen Corke, D.H. Lawrence: The Croydon Years, Austin (Tex): University of Texas Press, 1965.

George Ford, Double Measure: A Study of D.H.Lawrence, 1965.

H M Daleski, The Forked Flame: A Study of D.H.Lawrence, Evanston (Ill): Northwestern University Press, 1965.

Keith Sagar, The Art of D.H.Lawrence, 1966.

David Cavitch, D.H.Lawrence and the New World, 1969.

Colin Clarke, River of Dissolution: D.H.Lawrence and English Romanticism, 1969.

Baruch Hochman, Another Ego: Self and Society in D.H.Lawrence, 1970.

Keith Aldritt, The Visual Imagination of D.H.Lawrence, 1971.

R E Pritchard, D.H.Lawrence: Body of Darkness, 1971.

John E Stoll, The Novels of D.H.Lawrence: A Search for Integration, 1971.

Frank Kermode, D.H. Lawrence, London: Fontana, 1973.

Scott Sanders, D.H.Lawrence: The World of the Major Novels, 1973.

F.R.Leavis, Thought, Words, and Creativity in Lawrence, 1976.

Marguerite Beede Howe, The Art of the Self in D.H.Lawrence, 1977.

Keith Cushman, D.H. Lawrence at Work: The Emergence of the ‘Prussian Officer’ Stories, Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1978.

Alastair Niven, D.H.Lawrence: The Novels, 1978.

Anne Smith, Lawrence and Women, London: Vision Press, 1978.

R.P. Draper (ed), D.H. Lawrence: The Critical Heritage, London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1979.

John Worthen, D.H.Lawrence and the Idea of the Novel, London: Macmillan, 1979.

Aidan Burns, Nature and Culture in D.H.Lawrence, 1980.

L D Clark, The Minoan Distance: Symbolism of Travel in D.H.Lawrence, 1980.

Roger Ebbatson, D.H.Lawrence and the Nature Tradition, 1980.

Alastair Niven, D.H.Lawrence: The Writer and His Work, 1980.

Philip Hobsbaum, A Reader’s Guide to D.H.Lawrence, 1981.

Kim A.Herzinger , D.H.Lawrence in His Time: 1908 – 1915, 1982.

Graham Holderness, D.H.Lawrence: History, Ideology and Fiction, Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1982.

Hilary Simpson, D.H.Lawrence and Feminism, London: Croom Helm, 1982.

Gamini Salgado, A Preface to D.H. Lawrence, London: Longman, 1983.

Judith Ruderman, D.H.Lawrence and the Devouring Mother, 1984.

Anthony Burgess, Flame Into Being: The Life and Work of D.H.Lawrence, 1985.

Sheila McLeod, Men and Women in D.H.Lawrence, 1985.

Henry Miller, The World of Lawrence: A Passionate Appreciation [1930] 1985.

Keith Sagar, D.H.Lawrence: Life Into Art, 1985.

Mara Kalnins (ed), D.H. Lawrence: Centenary Essays, Bristol: Classical Press, 1986.

Michael Black, D.H. Lawrence: The Early Fiction, London: Macmillan, 1986

Peter Scheckner, Class, Politics, and the Individual: A Study of D.H.Lawrence, 1986.

Cornelia Nixon, D.H.Lawrence’s Leadership Novels and the Turn Against Women, 1986.

Colin Milton, Lawrence and Nietzsche, 1988.

Peter Balbert, D.H.Lawrence and the Phallic Imagination, 1989.

Wayne Templeton, States of Estrangement: the Novels of D.H.Lawrence 1912-17, 1989.

Janet Barron, D.H.Lawrence: A Feminist Reading, 1990.

Keith Brown (ed), Rethinking Lawrence, Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1990.

James C Cowan, D.H.Lawrence and the Trembling Balance, 1990.

John B Humma, Metaphor and Meaning in D.H.Lawrence’s Later Novels, 1990.

G M Hyde, D.H.Lawrence, London: Macmillan, 1990.

Allan Ingram, The Language of D.H. Lawrence, London: Macmillan, 1990.

Nancy Kushigian, Pictures and Fictions: Visual Modernism and D.H.Lawrence, 1990.

Tony Pinkney, Lawrence Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Weatsheaf, 1990.

Leo J.Dorisach, Sexually Balanced Relationships in the Novels of D.H.Lawrence, 1991.

Nigel Kelsey, D.H.Lawrence: Sexual Crisis, 1991.

Barbara Mensch, D.H.Lawrence and the Authoritarian Personality, 1991.

John Worthen, D H Lawrence, London: Arnold, 1991.

Michael Bell, D.H.Lawrence: Language and Being, 1992.

Michael Black, D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Virginia Hyde, The Risen Adam: D. H. Lawrence’s Revisionist
Typology, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992.

James B.Sipple, Passionate Form: life process as artistic paradigm in D.H.Lawrence, 1992.

Kingsley Widmer, Defiant Desire: Some Dialectical Legacies of D.H.Lawrence, 1992.

Anne Fernihough, D.H.Lawrence: Aesthetics and Ideology, 1993.

Linda R Williams, Sex in the Head: Visions of Femininity and Film in D.H.Lawrence, 1993.

Katherine Waltenscheid, The Resurrection of the Body: Touch in D.H.Lawrence, 1993.

Robert E.Montgomery, The Visionary D.H.Lawrence: Beyond Philosophy and Art, 1994.

James C Cowan, Lawrence, Freud, and Masturbation, 1995.

Leo Hamalian, D.H.Lawrence and Nine Women Writers, 1996.

D.H.Lawrence – web links

D.H.Lawrence at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews, study guides, videos, bibliographies, critical studies, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts of the novels, stories, travel writing, and poetry – available in a variety of formats.

D.H.Lawrence at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, publishing history, the Lady Chatterley trial, critical reputation, bibliography, archives, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence and Eastwood
Nottinhamshire local enthusiast web site featuring biography, historical and recent photographs of the Eastwood area and places associated with Lawrence.

The World of D.H.Lawrence
Yet another University of Nottingham web site featuring biography, interactive timeline, maps, virtual tour, photographs, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence Heritage
Local authority style web site, with maps, educational centre, and details of lectures, visits, and forthcoming events.

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Dictionary of Literary Terms

July 29, 2009 by Roy Johnson

explanations of the language of literary criticism

Do you want to know the difference between an epic poem and a tragedy? Between ‘classical’ and ‘romantic’? Between ‘naturalism’ and ‘realism’? Chris Baldick’s Dictionary of Literary Terms answers all these questions – and more besides. With entries which range from definitions of abjection to zeugma, it is in fact a guide to a mixture of old-fashioned grammatical terms, traditional drama, literary history, and textual criticism. It contains over 1,200 of the most troublesome literary terms you are likely to encounter. Some of the longer entries and explanations become like short essays on their subject.

He also includes literary terms which have slipped into everyday use – such as ‘text’ and ‘interpretation’. He gives clear and often witty explanations of terms such as ‘hypertext’, ‘multi-accentuality’, and ‘postmodernism’. He also explains more common figures of speech such as the metaphor (straightforward) and those you can never remember such synecdoche and metonymy (can you really tell the difference between them?)

He also explains literary genres, from ‘the madrigal’ to ‘dirty realism’ and ‘the boddice ripper’, as well as offering potted accounts of theories such as structuralism and hermeneutics.

The latest (third) edition has been expanded and I was glad to see that he has added entry-level web links from OUP’s companion website to the book.

This will appeal to the general reader with an interest in literary studies, but it’s principally a useful reference for the advanced schoolroom or for undergraduates. And in fact – make that teachers too. I’ve had a copy of the first edition on my shelves for years, and I use it all the time.

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Chris Baldick, Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (third edition) 2008, pp.361, ISBN: 0199208271

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Discourse and Ideology in Nabokov’s Prose

July 3, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Routledge Harwood Studies in Russian Literature

Vladimir Nabokov’s work has been widely regarded as an elaborate series of linguistic games in which a variety of clever and seductive narrators invite readers to collude in a system of aesthetic and moral beliefs which are held so firmly that to dissent from them would seem like heresy or not playing the game. Editor David Larmour explains the title of this collection of essays as an exploration of the ‘system of power relations in which the author, text, and reader are enmeshed’. In other words, Nabokov’s strategies are seen as open to challenge, with the clear implication that he has been getting away with it for far too long.

He is well known for his ‘strong opinions’, and some of his subject matter and authorial attitudes are very often seen as dubious – especially in Lolita, which gets special extended treatment here. Galya Diment starts the collection with her best efforts to defend Edmund Wilson from the damage inflicted on him by Nabokov in their now famous friendship-turned-dispute over the translation of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. Then Brian Walter makes a lengthy criticism of Bend Sinister to say not much more than that it is not one of his best novels.

Galina Rylkova reveals a literary precedent for The Eye in a novel by Mikhail Kuzmin called Wings published in 1906. She has no problem in establishing the parallels between the two texts, but most of her lofty interpretive claims are undermined by her failure to see that Nabokov’s narrator Smurov is a self-deceiving liar and a totally unreliable narrator. He is a comic-pathetic character who is a vehicle for one of Nabokov’s most brilliant experiments in narrative – an experiment which was only matched in subtlety by his later Spring in Fialta.

David Larmour contributes an essay which looks at the relationship between sex and sport in Glory. But like many of the other contributors he accepts almost at face value what Nabokov has to say in his introductions – which were written at a later date. There is no acknowledgement of ‘Trust the tale, not the teller’, or ‘Death of the author’, whichever you prefer.

Paul Miller offers a chapter which demonstrates that Kinbote, narrator of Pale Fire is a homosexual – something which I would have thought any reader above the age of fifteen would realise without being told. There are some perceptive analyses of the American crewcut, but not much more than can be accessed by any reasonably attentive reader.

What struck me was how long it takes these writers to say so little. They come from what is now the bygone age of pre-Internet writing – one which persists in the modern world only thanks to the requirements of tenure in the US and the Research Assessment Exercise in the UK.

Tony Moore makes a valiant attempt to offer what he calls a feminist reading of Lolita, even enlisting the help of Camille Paglia, but his argument that Humbert Humbert changes his moral stance and his prose style at the end of the novel doesn’t seem very convincing, especially when it simply ignores the fact that Humbert is guilty of murder.

There’s also a full-on rad fem reading of Lolita from Elizabeth Patnoe which combines personal testimony and high moral outrage in a very unprofessional manner, ignoring any distinction between the worlds of fiction and reality. At the end of a long tortuous argument, one is left wondering why she bothers reading the novel.

She also has an annoying habit of describing almost every narrative twist as ‘doubling’ – a term she uses indiscriminately as a synonym for ‘ambiguous’, ‘dubious’, ‘disingenuous’, ‘devious’, ‘evasive’, and other related terms.

Fortunately the collection is rounded off by two sensible chapters by Donald Johnson and Suellen Stringer-Hye which place Nabokov in the context of popular culture and America in the 1960s. The collection is based on papers given at an academic conference. It’s obviously one for the literary specialist, but Nabokov enthusiasts will not want to miss it – even if it’s to sharpen their own critical analysis against the views being expressed.

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David H.J.Larmour (ed), Discourse and Ideology in Nabokov’s Prose, London: Routledge, 2002, pp.176, ISBN 0415286581

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Franz Kafka criticism

April 21, 2015 by Roy Johnson

annotated bibliography of criticism and comment

Franz Kafka criticism is a bibliography of critical comment on Franz Kafka and his works, with details of each publication and a brief description of its contents. The details include active web links to Amazon where you can buy the books, often in a variety of formats – new, used, and as Kindle eBooks. The listings are arranged in alphabetical order of author.

The list includes new books and older publications which may now be considered rare. It also includes print-on-demand or Kindle versions of older texts which are much cheaper than the original. Others (including some new books) are often sold off at rock bottom prices. Whilst compiling these listings I bought a copy of Ronald Hayman’s study Kafka: A Biography for >one penny.

Franz Kafka (Overlook Illustrated Lives) – Jeremy Adler, London: Gerald Duckworth, 2004. A richly illustrated biography and introduction, with charming period photos of Kafka and Prague.

Kafka’s Clothes: Ornament and Aestheticism in the Hapsburg Fin de Siecle – Mark M. Anderson, Oxford University Press, 1995. A rich and subtle study that sets new standards for historical and textual interpretation of Kafka.

The Tremendous World I have Inside my Head – Louis Begley, Atlas Illustrated editions, 2008. A biographical essay that opens a window on a tormented soul – Begley treads carefully between the facts of Kafka’s life, the events of his fiction, and psychoanalysis.

Franz Kafka: Modern Critical Essays – Harold Bloom, New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2003. Useful to students doing serious research, particularly as a starting point in thinking about interpretations and finding critical sources.

Kafka: Gender, Class, and Race in the Letters and Fictions – Elizabeth Boa, Oxford University Press, 1996. This study relates Kafka’s alienating images of the male body and fascinated disgust of female sexuality to the culture of militaristic, racist, gender, and class ideologies.

Franz Kafka: A Biography – Max Brod, Da Capo Press, 1995. This was the first critical biography, written by his friend and literary executor.

The Diaries of Franz Kafka – Max Brod (ed), Schocken Books, 1988. These contain biographical details with early ideas and preliminary drafts for his stories and philosophic reflections.

Kafka’s Other Trial: The Letters to Felice – Elias Canetti, Schocken Books, 1989. This is a biographical and critical essay which considers the parallels between Kafka’s doomed love affair and its reflections in his work.

Kafka – Pietro Citali, Martin Secker & Warburg, 1990. An exploration and recreation of the life of Kafka, not so much its daily events, but rather what went on in his mind.

Lambent Traces: Franz Kafka – Stanley Corngold, Princeton University Press, 2009. A masterful explication of Kafka’s writing on the experience of ecstasy and transcendence.

Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature – Gilles Deleuze, University of Minnesota Press, 1986. Controversial study of language, meaning, and close reading by leading French metaphysical philosopher

Kafka and Dostoyevsky: The Shaping of Influence – W.J. Dodd (ed), London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1992. A critical study which evaluates the importance of Dostoyevsky’s life and imaginative fiction as a stimulus to Kafka’s own writing.

Kafka and Photography – Carolin Duttlinger, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. This study explores photography’s recurrence as a theme within Kafka’s texts and takes systematic account of his use of photographs as literary source material.

The Kafka Debate: New Perspectives for Our Time – Angel Flores (ed), New York: Gordian Press, 1977. A collection of individual studies of the key texts and themes.

Franz Kafka: The Poet of Shame and Guilt – Saul Friedlander, Yale University Press, 2013. Investigates some of the sources of Kafka’s personal anguish and its complex reflections in his imaginary world.

Franz Kafka (Critical Lives) – Sander Gilman, Reaktion Books, 2007. This is a short biography and critical overview of Franz Kafka, with an emphasis on the relationship between his life and works as read through his culture and his understanding of his own body.

Franz Kafka: The Jewish Patient – Sander Gilman, London: Routledge, 1995. This is the first book about Kafka that uses the writer’s medical records to explore the relation of the body to cultural myths.

A Franz Kafka Encyclopedia – Richard T. Gray (ed), Greenwood Press, 2005. This encyclopedia includes more than 800 alphabetically arranged entries on his works, characters, family members and acquaintances, themes, and other topics. Most of the entries cite works for further reading.

Kafka: A Collection of Critical Essays – Ronald Gray, New York: Prentice Hall, 1962. A collection of critical essays by a variety of Kafka specialists, designed for students and general readers.

Excavating Kafka – James Hawes, Quercus Publishing, 2010. Debunks a number of key facets of the Kafka-Myth, including the idea that Kafka was the archetypal genius neglected in his lifetime.

A Biography of Kafka – Ronald Hayman, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001. A scholarly but very readable biography by celebrated Kafka critic and translator.

Introducing Kafka – David Zane Mairowitz, Icon Books, 2007. A beginner’s guide to the life and work – with illustrations by comic artist Robert Crumb.

Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka – Ernst Pawel, Harvill Press, 1984. A highly regarded biography which is based on scholarship but written in an attractive and engaging style.

The Cambridge Companion to Kafka – Julian Preece (ed), Cambridge University Press, 2002. A compendium of critical essays covering all the key texts, which discuss Kafka’s writing in contexts such as feminism, deconstruction, psycho-analysis, Marxism, Jewish studies, popular culture, and film.

Kafka: A Very Short Introduction – Ritchie Robertson, Oxford University Press, 2004. Explores the main themes in his work and compares his thinking to that of other great writers like Nietzsche, Kirkegaard, Schopenhauer, Weber and Freud.

Kafka: Judaism, Politics, and Literature – Ritchie Robertson, Oxford University Press, 1991. This is a general study of Kafka, which explores the literary and historical context of his writings, and links them with his emergent sense of Jewish identity.

A Companion to the Works of Franz Kafka – James Rolleston (ed), Camden House, 2006. A collection of essays by Kafka specialists that represents a full range of methodological and thematic diversity.

The Myth of Power and the Self: Essays on Franz Kafka – Walter H. Sokel, Wayne State University Press, 2001. A collection of essays published in English for the first time place Kafka’s writings in a very large cultural context by fusing Freudian and Expressionist perspectives and incorporating more theoretical approaches – linguistic theory, Gnosticism, and aspects of Derrida.

Franz Kafka: Narration, Rhetoric, and Reading – Ronald Spiers, and Beatrice Sandberg, , Ohio State University Press, 2011. Presents essays by noted Kafka critics and by leading narratologists who explore Kafka’s original and innovative uses of narrative throughout his career.

Franz Kafka (Writers and Their Work) – Michael Wood, Northcote House Publishers, 1998. Close readings of individual works, and attention to Kafka’s Austro-Hungarian historical context.

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