cambridge companions to literature 20thc century writers...

WC20th Century Writers

Cambridge Companions to Literature

2007

www.cambridge.org/companions

WBBritish Writers

WC20th Century Writers


2007

Cambridge Companions to Literature provide students and other readers with stimulating introductions to particular authors, genres and periods in the history of literature and drama. All Companions feature newly commissioned essays by international teams of experts, extensive breadth and depth of coverage, a wide range of critical approaches, bibliographical material, a chronological table, a guide to further reading and an index.

This leaflet contains all Companions concerned with twentieth century writing and literature.

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WBBritish Writers

New The Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath

Edited by Jo GillBath Spa University

The controversies that surround Sylvia Plath’s life and work mean that her poems are more read and studied now than ever before. This Companion provides a comprehensive and authoritative overview of Sylvia Plath’s poetry, prose, letters and journals and of their place in twentieth-century culture. These newly commissioned essays by leading international scholars represent a spectrum of critical perspectives. They pay particular attention to key debates and to well-known texts such as Ariel and The Bell Jar, while offering original and thought-provoking readings to new as well as more experienced Plath readers.The Companion also discusses three recent additions to the field: Ted Hughes’s Birthday Letters, Plath’s complete Journals and the ‘Restored’ edition of Ariel. With its invaluable guide to further reading and chronology of Plath’s life and work, this Companion will help students and scholars understand and enjoy Plath’s work and its continuing relevance.

ContentsChronology; Part I. Contexts and Issues: 1. The problem of biography Susan R. van Dyne; 2. Plath, history and politics Deborah Nelson; 3. Plath and psychoanalysis: uncertain truths Lynda K. Bundtzen; 4. Plath and contemporary American poetry Linda Wagner-Martin; 5. Plath and contemporary British poetry Alice Entwistle; Part II. Works: 6. The poetry of Sylvia Plath Steven Gould Axelrod; 7. The Colossus

and Crossing the Water Jo Gill; 8. Ariel and other poems Christina Britzolakis; 9. The Bell Jar and other prose Janet Badia; 10. Plath’s letters and journals Tracy Brain; 11. The poetry of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes: call and response Diane Middlebrook; Guide to further reading.


2006 | 228 x 152 mm | 208pp

978 0 521 84496 3 (0 521 84496 7) HB £45.00

978 0 521 60685 1 (0 521 60685 3) PB £15.99

Forthcoming The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell Edited by John Rodden

George Orwell is regarded as the greatest political writer in English of the twentieth century. Chapters in this Companion address what is central to his work. They concentrate on the fiction and documentary writings, but they also cover Orwell’s prose style and such topics and issues of keen interest to readers as his literary style, patriotism, his positions on war and pacifism, and his anti-Communism. The contributors also discuss Orwell’s status among intellectuals and in the literary academy.

2007 | 228 x 152 mm

978 0 521 85842 7 (0 521 85842 9) HB c. £45.00

978 0 521 675079 (0 521 67507 3) PB c. £15.99

Forthcoming The Cambridge Companion to E. M. ForsterEdited by David Bradshaw

This new collection of sixteen specially-commissioned essays, each one contributed by a recognized expert, both brings Forster

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studies up to date and provides lively and innovative readings of every aspect of his diverse career. It includes substantial chapters on Forster’s two major novels, Howards End and A Passage to India, and is the most comprehensive study of his work to be published for many years, providing an invaluable source of comments on and insight into the whole range of his writings.

978 0 521 83475 9 (0 521 83475 9) HB c. £45.00

978 0 521 54252 4 (0 521 54252 9) PB c. £15.99

Forthcoming The Cambridge Companion to Salman RushdieEdited by Abdulrazak Gurnah 978 0 521 84719 3 (0 521 84719 2) HB c. £45.00

978 0 521 60995 1 (0 521 60995 X) PB c. £17.99

Forthcoming The Cambridge Companion to Brian Friel Edited by Anthony RocheUniversity College Dublin

Brian Friel is widely recognized as Ireland’s greatest living playwright, winning an international reputation through such acclaimed works as Translations (1980) and Dancing at Lughnasa (1990). This collection of specially commissioned essays includes

contributions from leading commentators on Friel’s work (including two fellow playwrights) and explores the entire range of his career from his 1964 breakthrough with Philadelphia, Here I Come! to his most recent success in Dublin and London with The Home Place (2005). The essays approach Friel’s plays both as literary texts and as performed drama, and provide the perfect introduction for students of both English and Theatre Studies, as well as theatregoers. The collection considers Friel’s lesser-known works alongside his more celebrated plays and provides a comprehensive critical survey of his career. This is the most up to date and comprehensive study of Friel’s work to be published, and includes a chronology and further reading suggestions.

Contents1. Introduction Anthony Roche; 2. The early plays Thomas Kilroy; 3. Surviving the sixties: three plays by Brian Friel 1968-1971 Frank McGuinness; 4. Friel and the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ play Stephen Watt; 5. Family affairs: Friel’s plays of the late seventies Anthony Roche; 6. Five ways of looking at Faith Healer Nicholas Grene; 7. Translations, the Field Day debate and the re-imagining of Irish identity Martine Pelletier; 8. Dancing at Lughnasa and the unfinished revolution Helen Lojek; 9. The late plays George O’Brien; 10. Friel’s Irish Russia Richard Pine; 11. Friel and performance history Patrick Burke; 12. Friel’s dramaturgy: the visual dimension Richard Allen Cave; 13. Performativity, unruly bodies and gender in Brian Friel’s drama Anna McMullan; 14. Brian Friel as postcolonial playwright Csilla Bertha; Select bibliography; Index.


2006 | 228 x 152 mm | 230pp

978 0 521 85399 6 (0 521 85399 0) HB c. £ 45.00 978 0 521 66686 2 (0 521 66686 4) PB c. £ 15.99

WIIrish Writers

Forthcoming The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney Edited by Bernard O’Donoghue

2007 | 228 x 152 mm

978 0 521 83882 5 (0 521 83882 7) HB c. £45.00

978 0 521 54755 0 (0 52154755 5) PB c. £17.99

NewThe Cambridge Companion to W. B. YeatsEdited by Marjorie HowesBoston College, Massachusetts

and John KellySt John’s College, Oxford

This accessible and thought-provoking Companion is designed to help students experience the pleasures and challenges offered by one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets. A team of international contributors examines Yeats’s poetry, drama and prose in their historical and national contexts. The essays explain and synthesise major aspects and themes of his life and work: his lifelong engagement with Ireland, his complicated relationship to the English literary tradition, his literary, social, and political criticism and the evolution of his complex spiritual and religious sense. First-time readers of Yeats as well as more advanced scholars will welcome this comprehensive account of Yeats’s career with its useful chronological outline and survey of the most important current trends in Yeats scholarship. Taken as a whole,

this Companion comprises an essential introduction for students and teachers of Yeats.

ContentsChronology; 1. Introduction Marjorie Howes; 2. Yeats and Romanticism George Bornstein; 3. Yeats, Victorianism and the 1890s George Watson; 4. Yeats and Modernism Daniel Albright; 5. The later poetry Helen Vendler; 6. Yeats and the drama Bernard O’Donoghue; 7. Yeats and criticism Declan Kiberd; 8. Yeats, folklore and Irish legend James Pethica; 9. Yeats and the occult Margaret Mills Harper; 10. Yeats and gender Elizabeth Butler Cullingford; 11. Yeats and politics Jonathan Allison; 12. Yeats and the postcolonial Marjorie Howes; Guide to further reading.


2006 | 228 x 152 mm | 262pp

978 0 521 65089 2 (0 521 65089 5) HB £ 45.00 978 0 521 65886 7 (0 521 65886 1) PB £ 15.99

New The Cambridge Companion to John Updike Edited by Stacey OlsterState University of New York, Stony Brook

John Updike is one of the most prolific and important American authors of the contemporary period, with an acclaimed body of work that spans half a century and is inspired by everything from American exceptionalism to American popular culture. This Companion joins together a distinguished international team of contributors to address both the major themes in Updike’s writing as well as the sources of controversy that Updike’s

WAAmerican Writers


writing has often provoked. It traces the ways in which historical and cultural changes in the second half of the twentieth century have shaped not just Updike’s reassessment of America’s heritage, but his reassessment of the literary devices by which that legacy is best portrayed. With a chronology and bibliography of Updike’s published writings, this is the only guide students and scholars of Updike will need to understand this extraordinary writer.

ContentsIntroduction: ‘A sort of helplessly 50’s guy’ Stacey Olster; Part I. Early Influences and Recurrent Concerns: 1. Updike, middles, and the spell of ‘subjective geography’ D. Quentin Miller; 2. ‘Nakedness’ or realism in Updike’s early short stories Kristiaan Versluys; 3. Updike, religion, and the novel of moral debate Marshall Boswell; Part II. Controversy and Difference: 4. Updike, women, and mythologized sexuality Kathleen Verduin; 5. Updike, race, and the postcolonial project Jay Prosser; 6. Updike, ethnicity, and Jewish-American drag Sanford Pinsker; Part III. American Chronicles: 7. Updike, American history, and historical methodology Edward Vargo; 8. Updike, Hawthorne, and American literary history James Plath; 9. Updike, film, and American popular culture James A. Schiff; 10. John Updike, Rabbit Angstrom, and the myth of American exceptionalism Donald J. Greiner; Conclusion: U(pdike) & P(ostmodernism) John N. Duvall; Select bibliography.


2006 | 228 x 152 mm | 214pp

978 0 521 84532 8 (0 521 84532 7) HB £ 45.00 978 0 521 60730 8 (0 521 60730 2) PB £ 15.99

ForthcomingThe Cambridge Companion to Toni MorrisonEdited by Justine Tally Universidad de la Laguna, Tenerife

978 0 521 86111 3 (0 521 86111 X) HB c. £45.00

978 0 521 67832 2 (0 521 67832 3) PB c. £17.99

The Cambridge Companion to Margaret AtwoodEdited by Coral Ann HowellsUniversity of Reading

Margaret Atwood’s international celebrity has given a new visibility to Canadian literature in English. This Companion provides a comprehensive critical account of Atwood’s writing across the wide range of genres within which she has worked for the past forty years, while paying attention to her Canadian cultural context and the multiple dimensions of her celebrity. The main concern is with Atwood the writer, but there is also Atwood the media star and public performer, cultural critic, environmentalist and human rights spokeswoman, social and political satirist, and mythmaker. This immensely varied profile is addressed in a series of chapters which cover biographical, textual, and contextual issues. The Introduction contains an analysis of dominant trends in Atwood criticism since the 1970s, while the essays by twelve leading international Atwood critics represent the wide range of different perspectives in current Atwood scholarship.

ContentsMargaret Atwood chronology; Introduction Coral Ann Howells; 1. Margaret Atwood in her Canadian context David Staines; 2. Biography/Autobiography Lorraine York; 3. Power politics: power and identity Pilar Somacarrera; 4. Margaret Atwood’s female bodies Madeleine Davies; 5. Margaret Atwood and environmentalism Shannon Hengen; 6. Margaret Atwood and history Coomi S. Vevaina; 7. Home and nation in Margaret Atwood’s later fiction Eleanora Rao; 8. Margaret Atwood’s humour Marta Dvorak; 9. Margaret Atwood’s poetry and poetics Branko Gorjup; 10. Margaret Atwood’s short stories and shorter fictions Reingard M. Nischik; 11. Margaret

Atwood’s dystopian visions: The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake Coral Ann Howells; 12. Blindness and survival in Margaret Atwood’s major novels Sharon R. Wilson; Further reading.


2006 | 228 x 152 mm | 222pp

978 0 521 83966 2 (0 521 83966 1) HB £ 45.00 978 0 521 54851 9 (0 521 54851 9) PB £ 15.99

Forthcoming The Cambridge Companion to Philip RothEdited by Timothy ParrishTexas Christian University

From the moment that his debut book, Goodbye, Columbus (1959), won him the National Book Award, Philip Roth has been among the most influential and controversial writers of our age. Now the author of more than twenty novels, numerous stories, two memoirs, and two books of literary criticism, Roth has used his writing to continually reinvent himself and in doing so to remake the American literary landscape. This Companion provides the most comprehensive introduction to his works and thought in a collection of newly commissioned essays from distinguished scholars. Beginning with the urgency of Roth’s early fiction and extending to the vitality of his most recent novels, these essays trace Roth’s artistic engagement with questions about ethnic identity, postmodernism, Israel, the Holocaust, sexuality, and the human psyche itself. With its chronology and guide to further reading, this Companion will be essential for new and returning Roth readers, students and scholars.

ContentsIntroduction: Roth at mid-career Timothy Parrish; 1. American-Jewish identity in Roth’s short fiction Victoria Aarons; 2. Roth, literary influence, and postmodernism Derek Parker Royal; 3. Zuckerman Bound: the celebrant of silence Donald M. Kartiganer; 4. Roth and the Holocaust Michael Rothberg; 5. Roth and Israel Emily Miller Budick; 6. Roth’s doubles Josh Cohen; 7. Revisiting Roth’s psychoanalysts Jeffrey Berman; 8. Roth and gender Debra Shostak; 9. Roth and ethnic identity Timothy Parrish; 10. Mourning and melancholia in Roth’s American Trilogy Mark Shechner; 11. Roth’s autobiographical writings Hana Wirth-Nesher; Selected bibliography and suggestions for further reading.

2007 | 228 x 152 mm | 200pp

978 0 521 86430 5 (0 521 86430 5) HB c. £ 45.00 978 0 521 68293 0 (0 521 68293 2) PB c. £ 17.99

Forthcoming The Cambridge Companion to Wallace StevensEdited by John N. SerioClarkson University, New York

Wallace Stevens is a major American poet and a central figure in modernist studies and twentieth-century poetry. This Companion introduces students to his work. An international team of distinguished contributors presents a unified picture of Stevens’ poetic achievement. The Introduction explains why Stevens is among the world’s great poets and offers specific guidance on how to read and appreciate his poetry. A brief biographical sketch anchors Stevens in the real world and illuminates important personal and intellectual influences. The essays following chart Stevens’ poetic career and his affinities with both earlier and contemporary writers, artists, and philosophers. Other essays introduce students to the peculiarity and distinctiveness of Stevens’ voice and style. They explain prominent themes in his work and explore the nuances of his aesthetic


WEEuropean Writers

theory. With a detailed chronology and a guide to further reading, this Companion provides all the information a student or scholar of Stevens will need.

ContentsIntroduction John N. Serio; 1. Wallace Stevens: a likeness Joan Richardson; 2. Stevens and Harmonium Robert Rehder; 3. Stevens in the 1930s Alan Filreis; 4. Stevens and the supreme fiction Milton J. Bates; 5. Stevens’ late poetry B. J. Leggett; 6. Stevens and his contemporaries James Longenbach; 7. Stevens and Romanticism Joseph Carroll; 8. Stevens and philosophy Bart Eeckhout; 9. Stevens’ seasonal cycles George S. Lensing; 10. Stevens and the lyric speaker Helen Vendler; 11. Stevens and linguistic structure Beverly Maeder; 12. Stevens and painting Bonnie Costello; 13. Stevens and the feminine Jacqueline Vaught Brogan; 14. Stevens and belief David R. Jarraway; Guide to further reading; Index.


2007 | 228 x 152 mm | 208pp

978 0 521 84956 2 (0 521 84956 X) HB c. £ 45.00 978 0 521 61482 5 (0 521 61482 1) PB c. £ 15.99

Forthcoming The Cambridge Companion to Brecht, Second editionEdited by Peter ThomsonUniversity of Exeter

and Glendyr SacksUniversity of Exeter

This updated Companion offers students crucial guidance on virtually every aspect of the work of this complex and controversial writer. It brings together the contrasting views of major critics and active practitioners, and this new edition introduces new voices and themes. The opening essays place Brecht’s creative work in its historical and biographical context and are followed by chapters on

single texts, from The Threepenny Opera to The Caucasian Chalk Circle, on some early plays and on the Lehrstücke. Other essays analyse Brecht’s directing, his poetry, his interest in music and his work with actors. This revised edition also contains new essays on his early experience of cabaret, his significance in the development of film theory and his unique approach to dramaturgy. A detailed calendar of Brecht’s life and work and a selective bibliography of English criticism complete this provocative overview of a writer who constantly aimed to provoke.

ContentsA Brecht calendar Glendyr Sacks; Preface; Part I. Context and Life: 1. Brecht’s Germany: 1898-1933 Eve Rosenhaft; 2. Brecht’s lives Peter Thomson; 3. Brecht and cabaret Oliver Double and Michael Wilson; Part II. The Plays: 4. Brecht’s early plays Tony Meech; 5. The Threepenny Opera Stephen McNeff; 6. Brecht’s clowns: Man is Man and after Joel Schechter; 7. Learning for a new society: the Lehrstück Roswitha Mueller; 8. The Good Person of Szechwan Christopher McCullough; 9. Mother Courage and Her Children Robert Leach; 10. Life of Galileo: between contemplation and the command to participate Catherine Turner; 11. The Caucasian Chalk Circle: the view from Europe Maria Shevtsova; Part III. Theories and Practices: 12. Brecht and the Berliner ensemble – the making of a model Carl Weber; 13. Revolutionising theatre: Brecht’s reinvention of the dramaturgy Mary Luckhurst; 14. Key words in Brecht’s theory and practice of theatre Peter Brooker; 15. Brecht’s poetry Philip Thomson; 16. Brecht and music: theory and practice Kim H. Kowalke; 17. Brecht and stage design: the Bühnenbuildner and the Bühnenbauer Christopher Baugh; 18. Actors on Brecht Margaret Eddershaw; 19. Brecht and film Martin Brady; Bibliography.


2006 | 228 x 152 mm | 335pp | 30 half-tones

978 0 521 85709 3 (0 521 85709 0) HB c. £ 45.00 978 0 521 67384 6 (0 521 67384 4) PB c. £ 17.99

Forthcoming The Cambridge Companion to CamusEdited by Edward J. HughesQueen Mary, University of London

Albert Camus is one of the iconic figures of twentieth-century French literature. This Companion explores his best-selling novels, his ambiguous engagement with philosophy, his theatre, his work as a journalist and his reflections on ethical and political questions that continue to concern readers today.


2007 | 228 x 152 mm | 248 pp

978 0 521 84048 4 (0 521 84048 1) HB c. £ 45.00

978 0 521 54978 3 (0 52 1 54978 7) PB c. £ 17.99

Forthcoming The Cambridge Companion to Primo Levi Edited by Robert Gordon

2007 | 228 x 152 mm978 0 521 84357 7 (0 521 84357 X) HB c. £ 45.00

978 0 521 60461 1 (0 521 60461 3) PB c. £ 17.99

The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary TheoryEdited by Ellen RooneyBrown University, Rhode Island

Feminism has dramatically influenced the way literary texts are read, taught and evaluated. Feminist literary theory has deliberately transgressed traditional boundaries between literature, philosophy and the social sciences in order to understand how gender has been constructed and represented through language. This lively and thought- provoking Companion presents a range of approaches to the field. Some of the essays demonstrate feminist critical principles at work in analysing texts, while others take a step back to trace the development of a particular feminist literary method. The essays draw on a range of primary material from the medieval period to postmodernism and from several countries, disciplines and genres. Each essay suggests further reading to explore this field further. This is the most accessible guide available both for students of literature new to this developing field, and for students of gender studies and readers interested in the interactions of feminism, literary criticism and literature.

ContentsIntroduction Ellen Rooney; Part I. Problematics Emerge: 1. On canons: anxious history and the rise of black feminist literary studies Ann duCille; 2. Pleasure, resistance, and a feminist aesthetics of reading Geraldine Heng; 3. The literary politics of feminist theory Ellen Rooney; Part II. In Feminism’s Wake:

LTThemes in Literature


Genre, Period, Form: 4. What feminism did to novel studies Nancy Armstrong; 5. Autobiography and the feminist subject Linda Anderson; 6. Modernisms and feminisms Katherine Mullin; 7. French feminisms’ écriture féminine Kari Weil; 8. Feminism and popular

culture Nickianne Moody; Part III. Feminist Theories in Play: 9. Poststructuralism: theory as critical self-consciousness Rey Chow; 10. On common ground: feminist theory and critical race studies Rashmi Varma; 11. Feminists theorize colonial/postcolonial Rosemary Marangoly George; 12. Feminist psychoanalytic literary criticism Elizabeth Weed; 13. Queer politics, queer theory, and the future of identity: spiralling out of culture Berthold Schoene.


2006 | 228 x 152 mm | 322pp

978 0 521 80706 7 (0 521 80706 9) HB £ 45.00 978 0 521 00168 7 (0 521 00168 4) PB £ 17.99

The Cambridge Companion to the Irish NovelEdited by John Wilson FosterUniversity of British Columbia, Vancouver

The Irish novel has had a distinguished history. It spans such diverse authors as James Joyce, George Moore, Maria Edgeworth, Bram Stoker, Flann O’Brien, Samuel Beckett, Lady Morgan, John Banville, and others. Yet it has until now received less critical attention than Irish poetry and drama. This volume covers three hundred years of Irish achievement in fiction, with essays on key genres, themes, and authors. It provides critiques of individual works, accounts of important novelists, and histories of sub-genres and allied narrative forms, establishing significant social and political contexts for dozens of novels. The varied perspectives and emphases by more

than a dozen critics and literary historians ensure that the Irish novel receives due tribute for its colour, variety and linguistic verve. Each chapter features recommended further reading. This is the perfect overview for students of the Irish novel from the romances of the seventeenth century to the present day.

ContentsIntroduction John Wilson Foster; 1. The novel before 1800 Aileen Douglas; 2. The national tale and allied genres, 1770s-1840 Miranda Burgess; 3. The novel of the big house Vera Kreilkamp; 4. The Gothic novel Siobhan Kilfeather; 5. Catholics and fiction during the Union (1801-1922) James H. Murphy; 6. Irish modernisms, 1880-1930 Adrian Frazier; 7. James Joyce Bruce Stewart; 8. Region, realism, and reaction, 1922-1972 Norman Vance; 9. The novel in Irish Alan Titley; 10. Women novelists, 1930s-1960s Ann Owens Weekes; 11. Two post-modern novelists: Samuel Beckett and Flann O’Brien Terence Brown; 12. Life writing in the twentieth century Elizabeth Grubgeld; 13. The novel and the Northern Troubles Elmer Kennedy-Andrews; 14. Contemporary Irish fiction Eve Patten.


2006 | 228 x 152 mm | 312pp

978 0 521 86191 5 (0 521 86191 8) HB c. £ 45.00 978 0 521 67996 1 (0 521 67996 6) PB c. £ 17.99

Forthcoming The Cambridge Companion to the Modernist NovelEdited by Morag ShiachQueen Mary, University of London

2007 | 228 x 152 mm

978 0 521 85444 3 (0 521 85444 X) HB c. £ 45.00

978 0 521 67074 6 (0 521 67074 8) PB c. £ 17.99

ForthcomingThe Cambridge Companion to Modernist PoetryAlex DavisNational University of Ireland, Galway

Lee JenkinsNational University of Ireland, Galway

2007 | 228 x 152 mm

978 0 521 85305 7 (0 521 85305 2) HB c. £ 45.00

978 0 521 61815 1 (0 521 61815 0) PB c. £ 17.99


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