Books in the New Readings Series series

An introduction to Spanish Baroque literature and culture, this text considers works by major Spanish novelists, dramatists, poets and painters. It covers issues such as honour and identity, the influence of the court, social and literary institutions, and the place of women in cultural life.

Takes the literature of the period both as a window on various mindsets and as an object of fascination in its own right. Beginning with history, the century's biggest problem and potential, this title looks at narrative responses to historical, political and social experience, before devoting central chapters to poetry, drama and novels.

Short accessible introductions to European literature and culture. The author offers a vivid overview of the century's literature, charting a series of motifs of Italy's 'difficult modernity' - from war to the city, from language to geography, from marginal groups to avant-garde movements - through a wide array of writers and texts.

This introduction to the French Enlightenment corrects the view that the writers of the period were a mere stopover to modernity. It covers key exam literature, in particular Voltaire, Diderot, d'Alembert, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Rivarol, Sedaine, Palissot, theatre, gender issues and feminism.

This guide provides an overview of the key literary movements in 20th century French literature and the major writers of prose, poetry and drama, from great novelists such as Proust, to great thinkers like Sartre, by way of controversial figures such as Genet, Beckett and Marguerite Duras.

This text on French cinema analyses the most widely viewed and studied works of the period, together with critical previews of some of the most recent French films as well as documentaries and home-movies.

The age of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Erasmus, Luther, and Machiavelli produced in France too some of Europe's greatest ever literature and thought: Montaigne's "Essays", Rabelais' comic fictions, Ronsard's poetry, Calvin's theology. This book introduces this literature and thought through an apparent paradox.