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"Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism." "Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of the aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western...
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In Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve, statistician and journalist Ben Blatt brings big data to the literary canon, exploring the wealth of fun findings that remain hidden in the works of the world's greatest writers. He assembles a database of thousands of books and hundreds of millions of words, and starts asking the questions that have intrigued curious word nerds and book lovers for generations: What are our favorite authors' favorite words? Do...
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"In the beginning of his literary career, James Joyce was an Irishman writing to protest the deplorable, volatile conditions of his native country. Today, he is an icon revered as a literary genius within the academic cottage industry known as "Joyce studies." Our Joyce explores his amazing transformation of a literary reputation, offering an unusually frank look into how and for whose benefit literary reputations are constructed." "One of only a...
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What exactly is the Western literary canon? Why does it contain certain works and not others? And what do particular works in the Western canon tell us about the development of literature and civilization? Explore these and other thought-provoking lectures with a thorough investigation of more than 30 key works of the Western canon and the critical roles they played - and continue to play - in the development of Western literature. Over the course...