Books in the Studies in Literary Criticism and Theory series

Why do readers report being powerfully affected by great poetry? What happens to you when we read a poem? This book offers a fresh way of reading poems by treating poems as dynamic - essentially as fields of energy. It lays out a theory of poetic language and applies that theory to a range of beloved works by, among others.

Jorge Luis Borges is acknowledged as one of the great Spanish writers of the twentieth century. On the broader literary scene, he is recognized as a modern master. His fascination with philosophy ¿ especially metaphysics ¿ sets him apart from his contemporaries. Borges appreciated and formulated rigorous philosophical arguments, but also possessed the unique ability to present the most abstract ideas imaginatively in metaphors and symbols. Borges wandered among the great masters seeking a firm purchase that he could not find, and therefore expressed a nostalgia for metaphysics as he lost himself in his labyrinths. Borges and Philosophy traces Borges¿ philosophical concerns in his tales, essays, and poems and argues that despite his apparent skepticism in philosophical matters, a careful reading of Borges¿ texts reveals a coherent philosophical path that underlies his work.

Explodes the near-universal belief that parody is a copycat genre or that it consists of a collection of trivial and derivative forms. This title is defined in terms of three major variations that bang, bind, and blend artistic conventions into contrasting pairings, the results of which are upheavals of existing conventions.