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Post-modern Literature
Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This style of experimental literature emerged strongly in the United States in the 1960s through the writings of authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, Philip K. Dick, Kathy Acker, and John Barth. Postmodernists often challenge authorities, which has been seen as a symptom of the fact that this style of literature first emerged in the context of political tendencies in the 1960s.Linda Hutcheon (1988) ''A Poetics of Postmodernism.'' London: Routledge, pp. 202-203. This inspiration is, among other things, seen through how postmodern literature is highly self-reflexive about the political issues it speaks to. Precursors to postmodern literature include Miguel de Cervantes’ ''Don Quixote'' (1605–1615), Laurence Sterne’s ''Tristram Shandy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role. Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoir, letters, and the essay. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles or other printed information on a particular subject.''OED'' Etymologically, the term derives from Latin ''literatura/litteratura'' "learning, a writing, grammar," originally "writing formed with letters," from ''litera/littera'' "letter". In spite of this, the term has also been applied to spoken or s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Quixote
is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of Western literature, it is often labelled as the first modern novel and one of the greatest works ever written. ''Don Quixote'' is also one of the most-translated books in the world. The plot revolves around the adventures of a member of the lowest nobility, an hidalgo from La Mancha named Alonso Quijano, who reads so many chivalric romances that he either loses or pretends to have lost his mind in order to become a knight-errant () to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name . He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthy wit in dealing with Don Quixote's rhetorical monologues on knighthood, already considered old-fashioned at the time, and representing the most droll realism in contr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Visit From The Goon Squad
''A Visit from the Goon Squad'' is a 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning work of fiction by American author Jennifer Egan. The book is a set of thirteen interrelated stories with a large set of characters all connected to Bennie Salazar, a record company executive, and his assistant, Sasha. The book centers on the mostly self-destructive characters of different ages who, as they grow older, are sent in unforeseen, and sometimes unusual, directions by life. The stories shift back and forth in time from the 1970s to the present and into the near future. Many of the stories take place in and around New York City, although other settings include San Francisco, Italy, and Kenya. In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize, the book also won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 2010. The novel received mostly positive reviews from critics and later appeared in many lists of the best fiction works of the 2010s. Collection or novel Because of its unusual narrative structure, some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan is an American novelist and short-story writer. Egan's novel ''A Visit from the Goon Squad'' won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. As of February 28, 2018, she is the President of the PEN America. Early life After graduating from Lowell High School, she majored in English literature at the University of Pennsylvania. While an undergraduate, Egan dated Steve Jobs, who installed a Macintosh computer in her bedroom. After graduating, Egan spent two years at St John's College, Cambridge, supported by a Thouron Award, where she earned an M.A. She came to New York in 1987 and worked an array of jobs, such as catering at the World Trade Center, while learning to write. Career She has published short fiction in the ''New Yorker'', '' Harper's'', '' Zoetrope: All-Story'', and ''Ploughshares'', among other periodicals, and her journalism appears frequently in the '' New York Times Magazine''. Egan's first novel, '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius
''A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'' is a memoir by Dave Eggers released in 2000. It chronicles his stewardship of his younger brother Christopher "Toph" Eggers following the cancer-related deaths of his parents. The book was a commercial and critical success, reaching number one on ''The New York Times'' bestseller list and being nominated as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. ''Time'' magazine and several newspapers dubbed it "The Best Book of the Year". Critics praised the book for its wild, vibrant prose, and it was described as "big, daring nd manic-depressive" by ''The New York Times.'' The book was chosen as the 12th best book of the decade by ''The Times''. Important characters *Heidi McSweeney Eggers – Eggers's mother, a woman who has to deal with raising her children while suffering from stomach cancer. She dies in January 1992, relatively early in the book. *John K. Eggers – Eggers's father was a heavy smoker and drink ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers (born March 12, 1970) is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He wrote the 2000 best-selling memoir ''A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius''. Eggers is also the founder of ''Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'', a literary journal; a co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness; and the founder of ScholarMatch, a program that matches donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in several magazines. Early life and education Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts, one of four siblings. His father, John K. Eggers (1936–1991), was an attorney, while his mother, Heidi McSweeney Eggers (1940–1992), was a school teacher. His father was Protestant and his mother was Catholic. When Eggers was still a child, the family moved to the suburb of Lake Forest, near Chicago, where he attended public high school and was a classmate of actor Vince Vaughn. Eggers's elder brother ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post-irony
Post-irony (from Latin ''post'' (after) and Ancient Greek ', meaning dissimulation (or feigned ignorance)) is a term used to denote a state in which earnest and ironic intents become muddled. It may less commonly refer to its converse: a return from irony to earnestness, similar to New Sincerity. Noted surreal humor comedian Tim Heidecker portrays a man living a post-ironic lifestyle in the 2012 indie drama film '' The Comedy''. In literature, David Foster Wallace is often described as the founder of a "postironic" literature. His essays "E Unibus Pluram" and "Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young" describe and hope for a literature that goes beyond postmodern irony. Other authors often described as postironic are Dave Eggers,Jensen, Mikkel. 2014. "A Note on a Title: '' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius''" in ''The Explicator'', 72:2, 146–150/ref> Tao Lin, and Alex Shakar. Overview Whereas in postmodern irony, something is meant to be cynically mocked and not ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Literature
American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition thus is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also includes literature of other traditions produced in the United States and in other immigrant languages. Furthermore, a rich tradition of oral storytelling exists amongst Native American tribes. The American Revolutionary Period (1775–1783) is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson. An early novel is William Hill Brown's ''The Power of Sympathy'' published in 1791. Writer and critic John Neal in the early-mid nineteenth century helped advance America's progress toward a unique literature and culture, by criticizing predecessors like Washington Irving for imitating their British counterparts and influencing others like Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe took American p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
On The Road
''On the Road'' is a 1957 novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across the United States. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonists living life against a backdrop of jazz, poetry, and drug use. The novel is a roman à clef, with many key figures of the Beat movement, such as William S. Burroughs (Old Bull Lee), Allen Ginsberg (Carlo Marx), and Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty) represented by characters in the book, including Kerouac himself as the narrator Sal Paradise. The idea for ''On the Road'', Kerouac's second novel, was formed during the late 1940s in a series of notebooks, and then typed out on a continuous reel of paper during three weeks in April 1951. It was published by Viking Press in 1957. ''The New York Times'' hailed the book's appearance as "the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian ancestry, Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking home in Lowell, Massachusetts. He "learned English at age six and spoke with a marked accent into his late teens." During World War II, he served in the United States Merchant Marine; he completed his first novel at the time, which was published more than 50 years after his death. His first published book was ''The Town and the City'' (1950), and he achieved widespread fame and notoriety with his second, ''On the Road'', in 1957. It made him a beat icon, and he went on to publish 12 more novels and numerous poetry volumes. Kerouac is recognized for his style of spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as his Catholic spirituality, jazz, travel, promiscuity, life in New Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The American Interest
''The American Interest'' (''AI'') was a bimonthly magazine focusing primarily on foreign policy, international affairs, global economics, and military matters. History The magazine was founded in 2005 by a number of members of the editorial board of ''The National Interest'', led by Francis Fukuyama, who opposed changes to that journal's editorial policy implemented by its new publisher, the Nixon Center. Several people formerly associated with ''The National Interest'' have been associated with ''The American Interest'', including former ''National Interest'' editor Adam Garfinkle (the founding editor of ''The American Interest''); Fukuyama, who serves as chairman of the journal's executive committee; Ruth Wedgwood, formerly a ''National Interest'' advisory council member and now an ''American Interest'' editorial board member; and Thomas M. Rickers, formerly the managing editor of ''The National Interest''. In October 2018, Jeffrey Gedmin was appointed Editor-in-Chief. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sartor Resartus
''Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books'' is an 1831 novel by the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle, first published as a serial in ''Fraser's Magazine'' in November 1833 – August 1834. The novel purports to be a commentary on the thought and early life of a German philosopher called Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (which translates as 'God-born Devil's-dung'), author of a tome entitled ''Clothes: Their Origin and Influence''. Teufelsdröckh's Transcendentalist musings are mulled over by a sceptical English Reviewer (referred to as Editor) who also provides fragmentary biographical material on the philosopher. The work is, in part, a parody of Hegel, and of German Idealism more generally. Background Archibald MacMechan surmised that the novel's invention had three literary sources. The first of these was ''A Tale of a Tub'' by Jonathan Swift, whom Carlyle intensely admired in his college years, even going by the nickname ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
