This comprehensive history of Spanish literature brings together experts from the US, the UK, and Spain to survey the range of Spanish literature from the early Middle Ages to the present day. The "classics" of the canon of eleven centuries of Spanish literature are fully covered, but attention is also paid to lesser known writers and works. This invaluable book contains an introduction, more than fifty substantial chapters, a chronology of history,... more...

Celebrates the author's humor and philosophies as reflected in many of his written works, in a collection of excerpts that considers such topics as the human condition, religion, and race. Original.

Do You Feel It Too? explores a new sense of self that is becoming manifest in experimental fiction written by a generation of authors who can be considered the 'heirs' of the postmodern tradition. It offers a precise, in-depth analysis of a new, post-postmodern direction in fiction writing, and highlights which aspects are most acute in the post-postmodern novel. Most notable is the emphatic expression of feelings and sentiments and a drive toward... more...

In this provocative and original study, Alan Richardson examines an entire range of intellectual, cultural, and ideological points of contact between British Romantic literary writing and the pioneering brain science of the time. Poets such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats, and novelists such as Jane Austen and Mary Shelley, are shown to have shared a surprising extent of common ground with pioneering brain scientists including Erasmus Darwin and F.... more...

The 700-year history of the novel in English defies straightforward telling. Geographically and culturally boundless, with contributions from Great Britain, Ireland, America, Canada, Australia, India, the Caribbean, and Southern Africa; influenced by great novelists working in other languages; and encompassing a range of genres, the story of the novel in English unfolds like a richly varied landscape that invites exploration rather than... more...

The thrills and chills of mountaineering literature have long attracted a devoted audience of serious climbers, adventure-seekers, and armchair enthusiasts. In recent decades, scholars have come to view these tales of prowess and fortitude as texts laden with ideological meaning. In "Imperial Ascent," a comparative study of seven such twentieth-century mountaineering narratives, Peter L. Bayers articulates the multiple and varied ways mountaineering... more...

A journey behind the mask and into the mind of Gotham City’s Caped Crusader, timed for the summer 2012 release of The Dark Knight Rises Batman is one of the most compelling and enduring characters to come from the Golden Age of Comics, and interest in his story has only increased through countless incarnations since his first appearance in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. Why does this superhero without superpowers fascinate us? What does... more...

What is it about lawyers that has made them the butt of hundreds and hundreds of jokes over the centuries? Whatever the reason, everyone—including lawyers and judges themselves—has had a hearty chuckle over attorney-aimed humor. Hilarious Lawyer Jokes pokes the most fun (and malice) at a profession that has been targeted with humorous jabs for centuries. From this single hilarious source, with full-color illustrations, get your one-liners (Q: How... more...

Jewish and Christian authors of the High Middle Ages not infrequently came into dialogue or conflict with each other over traditions drawn from ancient writings outside of the bible. Circulating in Hebrew and Latin translations, these included the two independent versions of the Testament of Naphtali in which the patriarch has a vision of the Diaspora, a shipwreck that scatters the twelve tribes. The Christian narrative is linear and... more...

This volume offers analysis of the narratological structure of the Theogony with the purpose of elucidating a major, unifying theme in this poem: the relationship between the divine and mortal realms. The techniques of narratology are herein employed to support the argument that Hesiod portrays the cosmos as sharply divided between gods and men. The Theogony should therefore be read as a didactic poem explaining primarily the position of man vis-à-vis... more...