Cultural historian Rosenbaum gives readers a way of rethinking the greatest works of the human imagination, as he shakes up much that we thought we understood about a vital subject and renews our sense of excitement and urgency. Rather than raking over worn-out fragments of biography, Rosenbaum focuses on cutting-edge controversies about the true source of Shakespeare's enchantment and illumination--the astonishing language itself. He takes readers into the midst of fierce battles among the most brilliant Shakespearean scholars and directors over just how to delve deeper into the mind of Shakespeare. He makes ostensibly arcane textual scholarship seductive, and he shows us great directors as Shakespearean scholars in their own right. This book offers a thrilling opportunity to engage with Shakespeare's work at its deepest levels.--From publisher description.

Each Volume, Covering Three To Six Poems, Includes: - User's guide- Editor's note and introduction by Harold Bloom- A comprehensive biography of the poet- Detailed thematic analysis of each poem- Extracts from major critical essays that discuss important aspects of each poem- A complete bibliography of the writer's poetic works- A list of critical works about the poet and his works- An index of themes and ideas in the author's work

"As an orphaned survivor and witness to the horrors of Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) compelled the world to confront the Holocaust with his searing memoir Night. How did this soft-spoken man from a small Carpathian town become such an influential figure on the world stage. Drawing on Wiesel's prodigious literary output and interviews with his family, friends, scholars, and critics, Joseph Berger seeks to answer this question."--

Richard Brody's Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard is a landmark biography of one of the great controversial geniuses of world cinema.

Along with Satre, Camus and Orwell, Arthur Koestler helped to shape the ideas of today. Once a communist, he saw through Marxism and led the intellectual counter-attack that culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall. His writings on science introduced millions to cutting-edge theories of evolution and the workings of the human mind. His speculations on human nature and the future of mankind in the atomic age stamped a generation that grew up in the shadow of the Bomb. As restless in his personal relationships as he was in politics, his violent affairs with women were legendary. His fascinating study is t he first to make use of Koestler's private papers and draws on previously secret documents held by the KGB and the FBI, exposing the depth of his involvement in the Communist Party and, later, his relations with the CIA. It also reveals the darker side to his nature, which led to the tragic dual suicide with his third wife, Cynthia, in 1983. David Cesarani has ensured Koestler's place in the pantheon of intellectual giants of the twentieth century as surely as the 'warts and all' approach is guaranteed to perpetuate the controversy that swirled around Koestler in his life and death.

Winner of the 2020 Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, France's best foreign book of the year. 'Astounding' Sebastian Barry 'A masterpiece' Ayad Akhtar 'This little book is ruminative, humane, and gorgeously precise' Jonathan Lethem In this genre-defying book, best-selling memoirist and critic Daniel Mendelsohn explores the mysterious links between the randomness of the lives we lead and the artfulness of the stories we tell. Combining memoir, biography, history, and literary criticism, Three Rings weaves together the stories of three exiled writers who turned to the classics of the past to create masterpieces of their own-works that pondered the nature of narrative itself. Erich Auerbach, the Jewish philologist who fled Hitler's Germany and wrote his classic study of Western literature, Mimesis, in Istanbul. Francois Fenelon, the seventeenth-century French archbishop whose ingenious sequel to the Odyssey,The Adventures of Telemachus - a veiled critique of the Sun King and the best-selling book in Europe for one hundred years - resulted in his banishment. And the German novelist W. G. Sebald, self-exiled to England, whose distinctively meandering narratives explore Odyssean themes of displacement, nostalgia, and separation from home. Intertwined with these tales of exile and artistic crisis is an account of Mendelsohn's struggles to write two of his own books-a family saga of the Holocaust and a memoir about reading the Odyssey with his elderly father-that are haunted by tales of oppression and wandering. As Three Rings moves to its startling conclusion, a climactic revelation about the way in which the lives of its three heroes were linked across borders, languages, and centuries forces the reader to reconsider the relationship between narrative and history, art and life.

"This book explores the themes of exile and wandering, homecoming and fated closures in literature-but also in real life and history-by invoking Homer's Odyssey. Focusing on crucial moments in the lives and careers of three scholar/writers-Erich Auerbach, François Fénelon, and W. G. Sebald-all of whom were inspired by Homer's epic, Three Rings uses "ring composition" (Homer's dominant narrative technique) to tell the stories of the three writers' lives"--

"Philip Roth (1933-2018) is one of the most celebrated American writers of his age. Born in Newark, New Jersey -- where his short stories and thirty-one books were often set -- he wrote with immense ambition and drive, along with a keen awareness of what must be done to produce great literature. Yet despite rubbing shoulders with the Kennedys and engaging in a spate of famous and infamous romances, he viewed himself as socially withdrawn, living much like an "unchaste monk" (his words). In this original and lucid biography, Steven J. Zipperstein captures Roth's complex life and the astonishing range of his self-reflective writings-from "Goodbye, Columbus" and "Portnoy's complaint" to the Pulitzer Prize-winning "American pastoral" and "The plot against America." Employing extensive archival research and well over one hundred interviews, including conversations with Roth himself, Zipperstein provides an intimate and probing look at one of the twentieth century's most influential authors, placing his work in the context of Jewishness, freedom, and sexuality in America"-- Provided by publisher.

Views of the Jew's body as different, deficient, and a carrier of disease (particularly tuberculosis) were common in Europe in the late 19th-early 20th centuries. Examines the role of these views in Kafka's writings and in his own life (1883-1924), which was plagued by sickliness and tuberculosis. In his writings, Kafka attempted to transcend his Jewishness and his physical limitations, although he knew that such attempts were futile. Discusses effects of the Dreyfus Affair and of blood libel trials on his work. Kafka seemed to typify the contemporary stereotype of the "Jewish patient", who was seen as suffering more from a fear of illness and grasping at every advantage that could be taken. Discusses the history of tuberculosis, its designation in the late 19th century as a Jewish disease, and Kafka's discourse about it.

The influence of Antonin Artaud on the contemporary theatre has only become evident since the early Sixties, although writers and directors have been directly or indirectly influenced by his thinking and innovations for many years. Today his pre-eminence as a founder of modern theatrical style is rivalled only by Brecht, with whom he has much in common. The man and his work, as Martin Esslin persuasively argues in this perceptive study, are inseparable and must be considered together. Genius or madman, everything about Artaud is fascinating – his extraordinary life, his passions, his wide-ranging interests, the brilliance and originality that he brought to his plays, his productions and his other writings. Artaud died in 1948 at the age of fifty-two, but accomplished a revolution in his short life that is still bearing fruit today. This compact, carefully researched study is an invaluable guide, combining readability with a sympathetic and authoritative study of its subject.

"Radical feminist author Andrea Dworkin was a caricature of the manhater in the popular imagination as well as a polarizing figure within the women's movement, infamous for her antipornography stance in the 1970s and 1980s. Now, more than a decade after her death, this timely collection of her writing showcases the prescience of her analyses: of the genocidal character of sexual violence; of the devastating nihilism of white male supremacy, and of the toll it takes--especially on those who resist. This rediscovery of Dworkin's work will serve as a flashpoint for crucial feminist conversations today. Why is the cost of speaking out against abuse and inequality still so high? Why is the problematic work of brilliant women forced into oblivion, when that of flawed great men is embraced? What can we learn from the bitter divisions and discarded ideas of previous generations?"--Page 4 of cover.

This is a reissue of a critical introduction to the novels of Virginia Woolf, first published in 1977. It makes close, illuminating readings of her nine novels, placing Woolf in her literary context and providing an accessible, clear and valuable guide for students starting out on a study of Woolf as a novelist, and for general readers seeking a fresh, helpful entry-point to the challenge of reading Woolf. Twenty years later, Hermione Lee wrote a prize-winning and acclaimed biography of Virginia Woolf: this critical study represented an early stage in this biographer-criticâe(tm)s life-long interest and involvement with Woolfâe(tm)s life and work.

"Distinguished theater critic John Lahr brings unique perspective to the life of Arthur Miller (1915-2005), the playwright who almost single-handedly propelled twentieth-century American theater into a new level of cultural sophistication. Organized around the fault lines of Miller's life--his family, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, Elia Kazan and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Marilyn Monroe, Vietnam, and the rise and fall of Miller's role as a public intellectual--this book demonstrates the synergy between Arthur Miller's psychology and his plays. Concentrating largely on Miller's most prolific decades of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, Lahr probes Miller's early playwriting failures; his work writing radio plays during World War II after being rejected for military service; his only novel, Focus; and his succession of award-winning and canonical plays that include All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible, providing an original interpretation of Miller's work and his personality."--

"Grayson Perry, renowned for his ceramic vases decorated with shocking, unconventional imagery, rose to fame in 2003 when he won the Turner Prize. Since then, Perry has remained an important voice in the arts and the contemporary discussion of gender--in 2016, he published the critically acclaimed book The Descent of Man. Perry's hard-hitting yet exquisite work, which also includes tapestry, prints, sculpture, and drawing, references his own upbringing and his life as a transvestite while engaging with broader issues, from war and religion to politics and sex. Grayson Perry, now in an expanded and updated edition to cover his work up to 2019, explores Perry's art through a discussion of his major themes and subjects. Jacky Klein's text is complemented by intimate and insightful commentaries on individual pieces by the artist, giving unique access to his imaginative world and creative processes. Over 225 of Perry's works are illustrated, as well as a rich selection of the visual material that has inspired him, from Afghan war rugs, Sumatran batiks, and medieval altarpieces to the paintings of Pieter Bruegel and the American Outsider artist Henry Darger." --Amazon.com.

Edouard Roditi's critical study of Oscar Wilde, originally published in 1947 in New Directions' Makers of Modern Literature Series, was a pioneering attempt to evaluate a literary reputation long distorted by the journalistic appetite for scandal. Relegating biography to a back seat, Roditi addressed the important of Wilde's ingenious, imaginative, and dialectical thought in his own time and showed how his poetry, novels, plays, and critical writings were a key influence in the shift of English and American literature away from established and aging Romanticism toward Modernism. For this first paperbound edition of his perceptive and erudite study of Wilde, Roditi has added three additional chapters touching on new material about Wilde as well as the new public attitudes about homosexuality that have evolved since the book was first published. An American long resident in Paris, Edouard Roditi is an internationally known linguist, scholar, art critic, and author and translator of a considerable number of works of fiction and poetry, criticism and biography. A collection of his witty and exotic short stories, The Delights of Turkey, is available under the New Directions imprint.

'Theater legend Malina has written one of the most interesting studies of the avant-garde theatrical movement published in the last several years.' âe" CHOICE Judith Malina and The Living Theatre have been icons of political theatre for over six decades. What few realise is that she originally studied under one of the giants of twentieth century culture, Erwin Piscator, in his Dramatic Workshop at The New School in New York. Piscator founded the Workshop after emigrating to New York, having collaborated with Brecht to create "epic theatre" in Germany. The Piscator Notebook documents Malinaâe(tm)s intensive and idiosyncratic training at Piscatorâe(tm)s school. Part diary, part theatrical treatise, this unique and inspiring volume combines: complete transcriptions of Malinaâe(tm)s diaries from her time as a student at the Dramatic Workshop, as well as reproductions of various of Piscatorâe(tm)s syllabi and teaching materials; notes on Malinaâe(tm)s teachers, fellow students âe" including Marlon Brando and Tennessee Williams âe" and New School productions; studies of Piscatorâe(tm)s process and influence, along with a new essay on the relationship between his teaching, Malinaâe(tm)s work with the Living Theatre and "The Ongoing Epic"; an introduction by performance pioneer, Richard Schechner. The Piscator Notebook is a compelling record of the genealogy of political theatre practice in the early 20th Century, from Europe to the US. But it is also a stunningly personal reflection on the pleasures and challenges of learning about theatre, charged with essential insights for the student and teacher, actor and director. 'Piscator is the greatest theatre man of our time.' âe" Bertolt Brecht

Bruce Robinson talks to Alistair Owen about his life and work; an absolute must for film buffs or anyone interested in the man who wrote Withnail & I and The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman.

Finished just weeks before his death, George Rochberg's eloquent memoir offers a detailed look at his fruitful life as a composer, publisher, and teacher of music. The volume traces a life immersed in music, with early study under George Szell and Gian Carlo Menotti and later long-term collaborations with the Concord Quartet and commissions for major orchestras and opera companies. Rochberg takes care to describe the intellectual and aesthetic changes that led him down certain paths as a composer, often challenging the conventions of the day. Reflecting on music, aesthetics, colleagues, and the life of the creative mind, Rochberg's memoir captures not only the spirit but also the intellectual climate of the second half of the twentieth century. Rochberg's life as a composer was marked by an ongoing search for his artistic place between tradition and the avant-garde, with an extensive oeuvre comprising over one hundred works including chamber ensembles, string quartets, symphonies, solo pieces, songs, and an opera. In addition to his importance as an American composer, he was also a central figure in academia and publishing. He served as chair of the University of Pennsylvania's music department, and as an editor and director of publications at the Theodore Presser Company, he helped marshal the company into one of the premier American musical publishing houses. Through the course of the book, Rochberg reveals the thought processes that led him in unexpected directions as he pursued the independent path of his career. This is the story of a creative mind developing, at times struggling, and constantly growing.--Publisher's description.

"This volume celebrates the literary oeuvres of David Shrayer-Petrov-poet, fiction writer, memoirist, essayist, and literary translator (and medical doctor and researcher in his parallel career). Author of the refusenik novel Doctor Levitin, Shrayer-Petrov is one of the most important representatives of Jewish-Russian literature. Published in the year of Shrayer-Petrov's eighty-fifth birthday, thirty-five years after the writer's emigration from the former USSR, this is the first volume to gather materials and investigations that examine his writings from various literary-historical and theoretical perspectives. By focusing on many different aspects of Shrayer-Petrov's multifaceted and eventful literary career, the volume brings together some of the leading American, European, Israeli and Russian scholars of Jewish poetics, exilic literature, and Russian and Soviet culture and history. In addition to fifteen essays and an extensive interview with Shrayer-Petrov, the volume features a detailed bibliography and a pictorial biography"--