Product Description
In this critical introduction to the major works of Austrian modernist writer Robert Musil (1880–1942), Allen Thiher offers deft analysis of Musil’s short fiction, theater, and essays, and his major novel, The Man without Qualities.

Thiher maps Musil’s development as a writer, illustrating how his work evolved in response to catastrophic historical events such as World War I, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Hitler’s seizure of power. From this historical context, Thiher traces how Musil began his career by writing a prescient first novel about ideological developments in German culture and, at the same time, a doctoral thesis on scientific epistemology. Following his service in World War I, Musil began to view writing as his vocation and, during this early period in his literary career, he produced short fiction, plays, and some of the most interesting essays on politics, ethics, and literature to be published during the Weimar era. In exploring these writings as well as The Man without Qualities, a work left unfinished upon Musil’s death in exile during World War II, Thiher’s study plumbs the depths of Musil’s ambition and accomplishments and presents a concise interpretation of the lasting significance of the writer’s interrogations of the foundations of modern European culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Got a lot; missed some things
I got a lot, but I missed discussion based on unpublished revisions and additions not tranlated by Burton Pike. ... Read more

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This truly interdisciplinary work utilizes literature as a primary resource in examining the concept of childhood and how it is exploited and explored in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin America. Little has been published on the history of childhood or children in Latin America. Whether equating the child's potentiality with that of the nation, or drawing an analogy between parent-child and state-citizen relationships; whether using the child as representative of marginalized sectors of society, or equating the status and role of the author in society with those of the child, in the end such literary treatments of childhood result in a dehumanization of the child performed in the name of constructing a national identity. ... Read more

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This is a thorough introduction to an author who mixes devotion to art and science with the harrowing experiences of Auschwitz.Primo Levi emerged from the Holocaust as one of the most powerful voices to bear witness to the atrocities of the Nazi concentration camps. Italian by birth and Jewish by ancestry, this young chemist survived Auschwitz and later, with his sober retelling of the horrific experience, consecrated the memory of millions who perished there. In this companion to his works, Nicholas Patruno analyzes Levi's novels, short stories, and essays to reveal a writer who eloquently evoked the soul of the persecuted Jew but who never came to terms with the guilt of his own survival.Patruno contents that while Jewish themes recur throughout Levi's work, labeling him narrowly as an ethnic writer would be inaccurate. Rather, Patruno echoes Italo Calvino in defining Levi as a writer of 'encyclopedic vein' and argues that Levi's significance as artist and communicator lies in the fusion of his scientific sensibilities and literary creativity. Patruno examines the synthesis of science and art in "The Periodic Table", considered by many to be Levi's greatest work.He also critiques "The Monkey's Wrench", Levi's short fiction and essays, the four books created directly from his Holocaust experience, and "If Not Now, When?", perhaps Levi's only truly conventional novel. Patruno shows that although Levi wrote absorbingly about a variety of topics, his work was always informed by his Holocaust experiences. ... Read more

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This is a provocative new reading of a crucial and often misunderstood period of Spanish American literature.Most studies of modernismohave focused on the poetry of Rubn Daro and have noted the movement's aestheticism and its unmistakable French influences.Kirkpatrick concentrates instead on important negations of harmony and the movement's internal dismantling of its own precepts. Major contradictions within the movement itself are revealed through the works of the Argentine Leopoldo Lugones and the Uruguayan Julio Herrera y Reissig. Extending her analysis to later writers such as Ramn Lpez Velarde, Csar Vallejo, and Alfonsina Storni, Kirkpatrick shows the changes that foreshadow the more overt experiments of these poets and illuminates the continuity between the modernistas and later generations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The work of a major Brazilian poet
"This Earth, That Sky" brings together poems from the career of Manuel Bandeira (1886-1968) of Brazil. The poems have been translated into English by Candace Slater. This is a bilingual edition, with the Portuguese originals and English versions on facing pages.

Bandeira has an engaging poetic voice. He writes about love, childhood, Brazilian culture, the cycle of life and death, and poetry itself. His attentive poetic eye finds both tragedy and beauty in many small things: poor children looking at balloons in "desire and wonder" ("Balloons"), a kitten urinating in the garden of a hotel ("Two-Star Hotel"), etc. His poems are graced at times with touches of humor, such as in his poem about a child's pet guinea pig ("Guinea Pig").

Other memorable selections include "Poetics," in which he declares "I prefer the lyricism of madmen / the lyricism of drunks"; "Voodoo at Pai Zuse's," about the activities of a Macumba priest; and the metaphysical vision "I Saw a Rose." This book is an important resource for scholars of Brazilian literature, but I also recommend it to those who enjoy poetry in general. ... Read more

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A collection of contributions on Brazilian literature based on the cultural, historical and political implications of the discovery of America. This book examines such topics as Brazilian independence, the Iberian model of colonial political organization, and cultural identities. ... Read more