Academic literature on the topic 'Writer in literature'

From fourteenth century medieval literature to contemporary American and African American literature, researchers have singled out and analyzed writing from every genre that is prophetic in nature, predicting or warning about events, both revolutionary and dire, to come. One twentieth-century American whose work embodies the essence of warning and foretelling through history-laden literature is Toni Morrison. This modern-day literary prophet reinterprets eras gone by through what she calls “re-memory” in order to guide her readers, and her society, to a greater understanding of the consequences of slavery and racism in America and to prompt both races to escape the pernicious effects of this heritage. Several critics have recognized and written about Morrison’s unique style of prophetic prose. These critics, however, have either taken a general cursory analysis of her complete body of works or they are only focused on one of her texts as a site of evidence. Despite the many critical essays and journal articles that have been written about Morrison as literary prophet, no critic has extensively investigated Morrison’s major works by way of textual analysis under this subject, to discuss Morrison prophetic prose, her motivation for engaging in a form of prophetic writing, and the context of this writing in a wider general, as well as an African-American, tradition. This dissertation takes on a more comprehensive, cross-sectional analysis of her works that has been previously employed, concentrating on five of Morrison’s major novels: The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Jazz and Paradise, in an order to assess how Morrison develops and infuses warnings and admonitions of biblical proportions. This investigation seeks to reveal Morrison’s motivation to prophecy to Americans, black and white, the context in which she engages with her historical and contemporary subjects, and the nature of the admonitions to present and future action she offers to what she sees as a contemporary generation of socially and historically oblivious African Americans, using literary prophecy as the tool by which to accomplish her objectives. This dissertation also demonstrates—by way of textual analysis and literary theory—the evolution through five novels of Morrison’s development as a literary prophet.

This thesis examines the work of the award-winning contemporary English short story and novel writer Jane Gardam. It proposes that much of her achievement and craft stems from her engagement with religion. It draws on Gardam’s published works from 1971 to 2014 including children’s books and adult novels. While Gardam has been reviewed widely, there is little serious critical appreciation of her fiction and there are misreadings of the influence of religion in her work. I therefore analyse the religious dimensions of her stories: the language, stylistics and hermeneutic of Gardam’s three religious influences, namely the Anglo-Catholic, Benedictine and Quaker movements and how she sites them within her work. The thesis proposes lectio divina, arguably an ancient form of contemporary reader-response criticism, as a framework to describe the Word’s religious agency when embedded or alluded to in fiction. It also considers and applies critical discussion on the medieval concept of the aevum, a literary religious space. Finally, I suggest that religious writing such as Gardam’s has a place in the as yet unexplored ‘poetic’ strand of Receptive Ecumenism, a new movement that seeks to address reception of the Word between members of different faith communities. Having examined many aspects of Gardam’s writing, its history and potential, I conclude that her achievement owes much to her engagement with particular and divergent forms of religious life and practice.

The present thesis seeks to study the works of René Schickele within the literary, social and historical context of his life. Born in Alsace at a turbulent point in its history, Schickele's personal development was bound to be affected by the immense political and linguistic changes resulting from its annexation into the newly created Second German Reich. The effects of these factors on Schickele's early literary theories form the basis of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 examines the expression of these theories in Schickele's editorial and creative work for <i>Jügstes Elsa</i>β, a literary circle of his creation based in Strasbourg. The writer's position is considered within the different streams of thought in the Alsatian literary arena after the turn of the century. The consequences of Schickele's departure from Alsace to Berlin in 1904 form the focus of Chapter 3. In the blossoming German capital his editorial role for the high-profile literary journal <i>Das Neue Magazin</i> earned him nationwide recognition; while living in Berlin, Schickele wrote his first novel, <i>Der Fremde</i>. It is studied as an example of the author's developing literary style. In 1909, the offer of a post as foreign correspondent for the Straβburger Neue Zeitung took him to Paris and away from the literary scene he had frequented in Berlin. The nature of his work in Paris brought him into close contact with the political sphere, and this had an envigorating effect on his stylistic development. As Chapter 4 aims to illustrate, his writing between 1909 and 1911 demonstrates a close interplay of literature and politics. Chapter 5 analyses Schickele's expressionistic novel <i>Benkal, der Frauentröter</i> within the context of contemporary literary and artistic fervour in the years immediately preceding the First World War. Schickele's preoccupation with literary modernity is examined alongside his attitude to political events. The outbreak of war brought about the most active, and most celebrated phase of his life. At this time he took over the editorship of <i>Die Wei</i>β<i>en Bläter</i> and earned a reputation both as a central figure of the Expressionist generation and as an outspoken pacifist.

To the extent that Tolkien's fantasy meets his own criteria for faL. ie as the "eucatastrophic " tale which points toward "Evangelium," the eschaton when God's plan in creation will be fulfilled and the effects of the fall overcome, Tolkien may be described as a gospel writer. That he intended his work to be read as "gospel," "the good news of the Kingdom of God," is suggested by its allusions to biblical and classical mythology, its linear view of history, its presentation as a compilation of received tradition. collected and translated by many hands from a wide variety of sources, by the location of Middle Earth in the distant past of our own world and by the author's attempt to create a world which comforms to familiar patterns of evolution. Less successful is his effort to provide his tale with a consistent Christian point of view.<br>Dans la mesure, cette oeuvre d'imagination repond aux crit6res de f6erie de Tolkien en tant que conte "eucatastrophic" qui montre le chemin vers "I'Evangelium", cette eschatalogie qui se situe au moment o0 la volontê de Dieu est accomplie et les effets de la chute sont surmontes, Tolkien peut etre. considers comme un auteur biblique. Le fait qu'il est voulu que son oeuvre soit lue en tant qu'"&angile", "la bonne nouvelle du Royaunie de Dieu" est suggêre par diffèrentes choses: les allusions faites a la mythologie biblique et classique, la vision linêaire de l'histoire, la presentation du texte en tant que compilation d'une tradition provenant de sources diverses, transmise, recueillie et traduite par diffèrentes personnes, la situation geographique dans "Middle earth"(l'empire du Milieu) dans un passé lointain, le fait que l'auteur ait essay6 de crêer un monde conforme au processus connu de l'êvolution. 10anmoins l'auteur n'a pas rêussi dans ce conte a maintenir un point de vue chrêtien. fr

<p> This introduction serves to provide a sketch of the circumstances that led to the prominence of "nativist," or <i>xiangtu</i> literature from the Republic of China (i.e. Taiwan) in the late twentieth century. Huang Chunming, the author of the stories featured in this thesis, has been a prolific writer from the east of the Taiwan Straits since 1962, and has contributed to the popularization of Taiwanese xiangtu literature in the decades of the island's industrialization experience. In Huang's world of fictional characters, readers have multifaceted records of the Taiwanese people's lives and the culture of their native soil.</p>

Carmen Sylva (1843-1916), a German princess and the first Queen of Romania, was a well-known royal figure and a prolific writer. Under this pseudonym, she published around fifty volumes in a wide variety of genres, including poetry, short stories and aphorisms. During her lifetime she was a regular feature in the British periodical press and visited Britain on numerous occasions. Widely reviewed – both celebrated and condemned for her ‘fatal fluency’ – Sylva’s work became marginalised after her death and has yet to be fully recovered. She has only recently received critical attention in her native Germany and has yet to be recuperated within British literary culture. This thesis will examine the reasons behind Sylva’s current obscurity as well as presenting the grounds for her reassessment. It will establish her connection to Britain, markers of which can still be found in its regional geography, as well as the scope of her literary presence in British periodicals. It will draw comparisons between Sylva and her contemporaries and will examine her contribution to fin-de-siècle British literary culture, analysing her short stories in order to detail her engagement with the ‘Woman Question’. This focus places Sylva at the centre of contemporary discussions and her often conflicting responses to such issues further our understanding of the complexity of nineteenth-century literary debates. In reassessing Sylva, this study will address broader notions surrounding the short story, popular fiction, and women’s writing, in order to question both current and contemporary attitudes to literature.