Christopher Ricks je britský literární kritik a vědec, známý svým šampionátem viktoriánské poezie a nadšením pro texty Boba Dylana. Jeho recenze jsou pronikavé, útočí na ty, které považuje za pompatické, a vřele chválí ty, které považuje za lidské nebo vtipné. Jeho kritická inteligence a výmluvnost jsou nepřekonatelné, což z něj činí kritika, po jakém sní všichni básníci.
Focusing on the intricate relationships between writers, this collection of essays by Christopher Ricks explores how authors, particularly poets, engage with each other's work. It delves into various forms of literary interaction, ranging from respectful allusions to the serious implications of plagiarism. With several essays newly written for this volume, Ricks offers a critical examination of the literary landscape and the dynamics of influence and appropriation among writers.
In Essays in Appreciation, Christopher Ricks continues the work of his highly-praised The Force of Poetry, with lively and provoking essays on poets and poetry. In addition, Ricks puts his appreciative pen in the service of other literary figures and genres, including drama, the novel, history and philosophy, and a discussion of Victorian biographies. Ricks wraps up the collection with a series of critical questions on literature and theory; plus two notes--on the canon, and on Empson and political criticism. W.H. Auden once wrote of Christopher Ricks that "he is exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding;" with this latest volume every scholar as well as serious reader will join the poet in finding much to appreciate.
Most people want to live forever. But there is another the longing for oblivion. With pain, wit, and humor, the art of Samuel Beckett variously embodies this truth, this ancient enduring belief that it is better to be dead than alive, best of all never to have been born. Beckett is the supreme writer of an age which has created new possibilities and impossibilities even in the matter of death and its definition--an age of transplants and life-support.But how does a writer give life to dismay at life itself, to the not unwelcome encroachments of death, when it is for the life, the vitality of their language that we value writers? Beckett became himself as a writer when he realized in his very words a principle of in clichés, which are dead but won't lie down; in a dead language and its memento mori; in words which mean their own opposites, like cleaving; and in what Beckett called a syntax of weakness.This artful study explores the relation between deep convictions about life or death and the incarnations which these take in the exact turns of a great writer, the realizations of an Irishman who wrote in English and in French, two languages with different apprehensions of life and of death.
Nejznámější dílo Laurence Sternea. Devítidílný román, na kterém pracoval od roku 1759 do roku 1767. Většina situací v knize je založena na absurdních rodinných nedorozuměních, které vyznívají humorně. Vtip vyprávění spočívá také v tom, že Tristram neumí nic vysvětlit jednoduše a dovšeho zaplétá široké souvislosti. Proud vyprávění je neustále přerušován epizodami, vtipnými odbočkami a postřehy a právě tato na svou dobu nová forma způsobila, že Sternovo postavení v historii románu 18. století bývá srovnáváno s postavením velkých tvůrců moderní prózy.
The essays in this volume are intended to give a modern reader a sense of the many contexts within which literature exists. The particular angle or emphasis is the contributor's choice. Thus Spenser's work is discussed in relation to his life and times; Shakespeare's sonnets are explored as transforming a specific genre; while Marvell is read in the context of the Caroline circle. Writers such as Sidney, Donne and Milton are discussed in more than one context. There are substantial chapters on genres, such as the epyllion or minor epic, the lyric and the prose of the period, as well as chapters on individual writers, and there is a bibliography and a table of dates. Published in ten volumes, "The Penguin History of Literature" is a critical survey of English and American literature covering 14 centuries, from the Anglo-Saxons to the present.
Imprescindible para los seguidores de Dylan, el libro del profesor Christopher Ricks analiza con mirada crítica las composiciones del cantante y poeta norteamericano -al que emparenta con los grandes poetas anglosajones T. S. Eliot, Gerard M. Hopkins, Tennyson, John Donne, William Blake y Philip Larkin- comparando incluso al bardo norteamericano, por su genio, ingenio y desenvoltura para saltarse las normas, con el propio William Shakespeare, a quien se conoce popularmente en los países anglosajones como «The Bard». En este brillante análisis, firmemente argumentado con los vastos conocimientos literarios de una larga vida académica dedicada a estudiar la poesía de T. S. Eliot, Milton, Tennyson y Keats, el profesor Ricks, catedrático de Literatura Inglesa de la Universidad de Oxford, analiza las principales canciones de Dylan en un intento de desentrañar dónde reside su misterioso atractivo. Ricks se propone averiguar por qué considera que pertenecen por pleno derecho al acervo de la poesía contemporánea. Ricks, a quien algunos sitúan junto a Harold Bloom en la cima de la crítica anglosajona contemporánea, no trata de convencernos de la calidad intrínseca del compositor norteamericano, sino que se limita a desmenuzar las letras de las canciones de Dylan y a analizar su modo de interpretarlas para averiguar por qué poseen esa magia que hace que se sigan escuchando cuarenta años después.
