Chinese Fiction of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Chinese Fiction of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
Author: Patrick Hanan
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2004
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780231133241

It has often been said that the nineteenth century was a relatively stagnant period for Chinese fiction, but preeminent scholar Patrick Hanan shows that the opposite is true: the finest novels of the nineteenth century show a constant experimentation and evolution. In this collection of detailed and insightful essays, Hanan examines Chinese fiction before and during the period in which Chinese writers first came into contact with western fiction. Hanan explores the uses made of fiction by westerners in China; the adaptation and integration of western methods in Chinese fiction; and the continued vitality of the Chinese fictional tradition. Some western missionaries, for example, wrote religious novels in Chinese, almost always with the aid of native assistants who tended to change aspects of the work to "fit" Chinese taste. Later, such works as Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle," Jonathan Swift's "A Voyage to Lilliput," the novels of Jules Verne, and French detective stories were translated into Chinese. These interventions and their effects are explored here for virtually the first time.

Romance and Readership in Twentieth-Century France

Romance and Readership in Twentieth-Century France
Author: Diana Holmes
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2006-12-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0191514365

Romance in modern times is the most widely read yet the most critically despised of genres. Associated almost entirely with women, as readers and as writers, its popularity has been argued by gender traditionalists to confirm women's innate sentimentality, while feminist critics have often condemned the genre as a dangerous opiate for the female masses. This study adopts the more positive perspective of critics such as Janice Radway, and takes seriously the pleasure that women readers consistently seem to find in romance. Drawing on the social constructionist feminism of Simone de Beauvoir, the psychoanalytical theories of Jessica Benjamin, and a range of social theorists from Bourdieu to Zygmunt Bauman, the book uncovers the history of romantic fiction in France from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century, and explores its place in women's lives and imaginations. Romance is not defined - as it usually is - solely in terms of its mass-market form. Rather, the history of women's popular fiction is traced in its full context, as one dimension of a literary story that encompasses the mainstream or 'middlebrow' as well as 'high' culture. Thus this study ranges from the formula romance (from the pious but popular Delly to global brand Harlequin), through 'middlebrow' bestsellers like Marcelle Tinayre, Françoise Sagan, Régine Deforges, to critically esteemed stories of love in the work of such authors as Colette, Simone de Beauvoir, Elsa Triolet, and Camille Laurens. Criss-crossing the boundaries of taste and class, as well as those of sexual orientation, the romance has been at times reactionary, at others progressive, utopian, and contestatory. It has played an important part in the lives of twentieth-century women, providing both a source of imaginative escape, and a fictional space in which to rehearse and make sense of identity, relationship, and desire.

The Nineteenth-Century French Short Story

The Nineteenth-Century French Short Story
Author: Allan Pasco
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2019-07-03
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1000134741

The 19th-Century French Short Story, by eminent scholar, Allan H. Pasco, seeks to offer a more comprehensive view of the definition, capabilities, and aims of short stories. The book examines general instances of the genre specifically in 19th-century France by recognizing their cultural context, demonstrating how close analysis of texts effectively communicates their artistry, and arguing for a distinction between middling and great short stories. Where previous studies have examined the writers of short stories individually, The 19th-Century French Short Story takes a broader lens to the subject, and looks at short story writers as they grapple with the artistic, ethical, and social concerns of their day. Making use of French short story masterpieces, with reinforcing comparisons to works from other traditions, this book offers the possibility of a more adequate appreciation of the under-valued short story genre.

Great French Short Stories of the Twentieth Century

Great French Short Stories of the Twentieth Century
Author: Jennifer Wagner
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2012-01-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0486476235

This original dual-language short story collection features 15 newly translated works by important 20th-century authors. Previously unavailable in English versions, contents include "L'ami et la femme" by Irène Némirovsky, "Pleure, Pleure!" by Andrée Maillet, and tales by Simone Schwarz-Bart, Sailesh Ramchurn, Fred Kassak, Yann Means, Marc Villard, and others.

The Classic Short Story, 1870-1925

The Classic Short Story, 1870-1925
Author: Florence Goyet
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2014-01-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1909254754

The ability to construct a nuanced narrative or complex character in the constrained form of the short story has sometimes been seen as the ultimate test of an author's creativity. Yet during the time when the short story was at its most popular - the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - even the greatest writers followed strict generic conventions that were far from subtle. This expanded and updated translation of Florence Goyet's influential La Nouvelle, 1870-1925: Description d'un genre à son apogée (Paris, 1993) is the only study to focus exclusively on this classic period across different continents. Ranging through French, English, Italian, Russian and Japanese writing - particularly the stories of Guy de Maupassant, Henry James, Giovanni Verga, Anton Chekhov and Akutagawa Ry?nosuke - Goyet shows that these authors were able to create brilliant and successful short stories using the very simple 'tools of brevity' of that period. In this challenging and far-reaching study, Goyet looks at classic short stories in the context in which they were read at the time: cheap newspapers and higher-end periodicals. She demonstrates that, despite the apparent intention of these stories to question bourgeois ideals, they mostly affirmed the prejudices of their readers. In doing so, her book forces us to re-think our preconceptions about this 'forgotten' genre.

WOMEN’S WRITINGS IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES

WOMEN’S WRITINGS IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES
Author: TAISHA ABRAHAM
Publisher: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2013-03-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 8120347366

Intended as a text for undergraduate students of English for their course on Women’s Writings in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, this compact and well-organized book provides both the history of the development of the short story in America and Britain and a comprehensive introduction to the modes on critical practices based on feminist thinking. It takes into account the strategies used by women writers, and discusses the politics of reception and production keeping especially the gender issue in mind. The text is divided into three parts—Part I: Introduction—containing two chapters that deal with the development of the American short story and the resurgence of radical feminism in America. These provide the historical and the feminist frame within which the short stories by the Anglo American Women’s Writers should be read. Part II gives four short stories: Kate Chopin—The Story of An Hour; Charlotte Perkins Gilman—The Yellow Wallpaper; Willa Cather—Coming, Aphrodite!; and Katherine Mansfield—Bliss. Each short story is preceded by a critical introduction, detailed references for further reading, and a biographical time line. Part III comprises three critical essays which provide sharp insights into the period in which the four women writers were writing. This book will be treasured not only by students but also by those who wish to study critically the feminist writings of the period. In addition, it will enrich readers’ understanding of American and British literary history and culture. The critical introduction to each short story traces the development of the form from its origins, both historically and in terms of female literary contributions to its development. The chapter on Radical Feminism is mapped in the context of social, political and cultural development. The book provides historical, literary and biographical contexts of the writers and their short stories.

French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century

French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century
Author: Gary Gutting
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2001-05-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521665599

A clear and comprehensive account of the history of French philosophy in the twentieth century.

French Stories/Contes Francais

French Stories/Contes Francais
Author: Wallace Fowlie
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2012-07-31
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 0486120279

Ten unusual stories: "Micromégas" by Voltaire; "The Atheist's Mass" by Balzac; "The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaler" by Flaubert; "Spleen of Paris" by Baudelaire; and more. English translations appear on facing pages.