Kafkas Castle And The Critical Imagination

Download or read book Kafka's Castle and the Critical Imagination written by Stephen D. Dowden and published by Camden House. This book was released on 1995 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kafka's final, unfinished novel The Castle remains one of the most celebrated yet most stubbornly uninterpretable masterpieces of modernist fiction. Consequently it has been a lightning rod for theories and methods of literary criticism. In this chronological study of its fate at the hands of academic and non-academic critics, S. D. Dowden lays emphasis on the acts of critical imagination that have shaped our image and understanding of Kafka and his novel. He explores the historical and cultural contingencies of criticism: from the Weimar Era of Max Brod and Walter Benjamin to Lionel Trilling's Cold War to the postmodern moment of multiculturalism and its turn to "cultural studies." Dowden shows how and why The Castle became a contested site in the imaginative life of each succeeding generation of criticism. In addition, he accounts for those moments at which Kafka's novel escapes, or at least attempts to escape, the gravitational pull of historically anchored understanding. Forthright in its prose, Dowden's is a book essential for anyone, casual reader or professional critic, who hopes to grasp the peculiar difficulties and challenges of Kafka's prose in general and of The Castle in particular.

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Kafka written by Julian Preece and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-02-21 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Franz Kafka's writing has had a wide-reaching influence on European literature, culture and thought. The Cambridge Companion to Kafka, offers a comprehensive account of his life and work, providing a rounded contemporary appraisal of Central Europe's most distinctive Modernist. Contributions cover all the key texts, and discuss Kafka's writing in a variety of critical contexts such as feminism, deconstruction, psycho-analysis, Marxism, Jewish studies. Other chapters discuss his impact on popular culture and film. The essays are well supported by supplementary material including a chronology of the period and detailed guides to further reading, and will be of interest to students of German, European and Comparative Literature, Jewish Studies.

Download or read book Kafka’s Italian Progeny written by Saskia Elizabeth Ziolkowski and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2020-01-06 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores Kafka's sometimes surprising connections with key Italian writers, from Italo Calvino to Elena Ferrante, who shaped Italy's modern literary landscape.

Download or read book Modernism and Melancholia written by Sanja Bahun and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modernism and Melancholia shows how a range of novels from 1913 to 1941 perform melancholia in their diction, images, metaphors, syntax, and experimental narrative techniques.

Download or read book Franz Kafka written by Harold Bloom and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of critical essays on Kafka and his work arranged in chronological order of publication.

Download or read book Kafka written by Klaus Wagenbach and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using diaries and letters, Wagenbach offers an extensive biography on Kafka that explores the writer's inner turmoil and troubled psyche. 50 illustrations.

Download or read book Kafka's Travels written by J. Zilcosky and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-30 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1916, Kafka writes of The Sugar Baron , a dime-store colonial adventure novel, '[it] affects me so deeply that I feel it is about myself, or as if it were the book of rules for my life.' John Zilcosky reveals that this perhaps surprising statement - made by the Prague-bound poet of modern isolation - is part of a network of remarks that exemplify Kafka's ongoing preoccupation with popular travel writing, exoticism, and colonial fantasy. Taking this biographical peculiarity as a starting point, Kafka's Travels elegantly re-reads Kafka's major works ( Amerika , The Trial , The Castle ) through the lens of fin-de siecle travel culture. Making use of previously unexplored literary and cultural materials - travel diaries, train schedules, tour guides, adventure novels - Zilcosky argues that Kafka's uniquely modern metaphorics of alienation emerges out of the author's complex encounter with the utopian travel discourses of his day.