Allegories of Writing

You Have 0 Item(s) In Cart |

My Account |

Order Status |

Check Out |

Allegories of Writing
The Subject of Metamorphosis

Click on image to enlarge

Bruce Clarke - Author

SUNY series, The Margins of Literature

Price: $50.50
Hardcover - 204 pages

Release Date: August 1995

ISBN10: 0-7914-2623-8
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-2623-4

Price: $21.95
Paperback - 204 pages

Release Date: August 1995

ISBN10: 0-7914-2624-6
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-2624-1

Summary

This is a theoretical study of human metamorphosis in Western literature.

Allegories of Writing presents the first full synthesis of allegory theory and literary metamorphosis. It examines the leading themes and the literary transformations of metamorphic narratives. By applying current theories of the text and the subject to metamorphic tales from Homer, Plato, and Apuleius to Keats, Kafka, and Calvino, this book recovers the critical force of metamorphosis in secular Western literature.

The author clarifies the cultural history of literary metamorphosis from the perspective of allegory theory. At the core of the study are the connections among Plato's Phaedrus, Apuleius's Golden Ass, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Keats's Lamia. Other primary texts are arranged around this core by their significant participation in the ironic literary deployment of metamorphic devices.

"Clarke succeeds in linking authors from Plato through Calvino by drawing attention to details that one would not normally notice, and then interpreting them in such a way as to make their relevance apparent." --Massey, State University of New York at Buffalo

Bruce Clarke is Associate Professor of English at Texas Tech University.

Table of Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

1. Writing as the Daemonic

2. History of Metamorphic Allegory

3. Metamorphic Subjects

Transformations of Affect
Shame and Disappearance
Political Economy

4. Fabulous Monsters

The Insect
The Basilisk
Life-in-Death
Sharikov
Qfwfq

5. The Gender of Metamorphosis

The Apuleian Psyche
Circe's Metamorphoses
The Changeling Boy
Lamia's First Life
The Vehicular Female
The Crone

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Related Subjects

Literary Criticism
Literary Theory

30243/30244(CFS//)