Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism
Edited by David Adams and Galin Tihanov
Legenda (General Series) •26 August 2011
Textual Wanderings: The Theory and Practice of Narrative Digression
Edited by Rhian Atkin
Legenda (General Series) •6 July 2011
The Picture as Spectre in Diderot, Proust, and Deleuze
Thomas Baldwin
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2011
- ‘Current critical debates on both spectrality and ekphrastic poetics are greatly enriched by Thomas Baldwin’s tightly woven and theoretically intricate study.’ — Margaret Topping, French Studies 67.1 (January 2013), 125
Gender, Nation and the Formation of the Twentieth-Century Mexican Literary Canon
Sarah E. L. Bowskill
Legenda (General Series) •6 July 2011
- ‘Its coherent, well-sustained, and highly persuasive argument is likely to inspire others to take on this and the other challenges outlined in the conclusion. Indeed, as much as Bowskill’s book delves into the archives of reviews of the past, this is also a forward-looking study.’ — Amit Thakkar, Modern Language Review 110.1, January 2015, 273-74 (full text online)
- ‘Sarah E. L. Bowskill’s study on gender, nation and canon-formation is a groundbreaking treatment of Mexican literature. She dissects a series of canonised and uncanonised novels to prove how the former were privileged by the state and how critics (un)consciously rewarded certain works while ignoring others... Bowskill makes us wonder why no one had deconstructed such critical happenings before, given that nation-building was the overpowering impulse to put Mexico in the literary map of modernity.’ — Francisco A. Lomelí, Bulletin of Latin American Research 34.1, 2014, 106-07
The Art of Comparison: How Novels and Critics Compare
Catherine Brown
Studies In Comparative Literature 23•12 May 2011
- ‘Brown's core chapters gracefully use varied conceptual tools and interdisciplinary viewpoints, all of which are engagingly woven into an organic whole, so that the reader emerges from this ambitious enterprise appreciating what notable work can be done when translation theory and practice are not seen as separate entities but as intercommunicative.’ — Andrew Radford, Translation and Literature 20, 2011, 403-08
- ‘Dexterously connects Eliot, Tolstoy and Lawrence to the considerations of nationalism and supranationalism at the heart of critical debates within and about comparative literary scholarship... Convincingly demonstrates that we as literary critics should open our ears and our minds to unlikely literary conversations, as well as the fresh knowledge and pleasure we may glean from them.’ — Katherine Anderson, George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Studies 62-63 (September 2012), 124-26
Post-War Jewish Women’s Writing in French
Lucille Cairns
Legenda (General Series) •25 March 2011
Saturn's Moons: W. G. Sebald — A Handbook
Edited by Jo Catling and Richard Hibbitt
Legenda (General Series) •6 July 2011
- ‘An erudite and deeply engrossing Sebald compendium. It fits his oeuvre that in place of a formal biography we have this border-crossing miscellany in which comment may be free but facts are indeed sacred. Michael Hulse, his equally gifted translator before Anthea Bell, reprints the correspondence in which he asked Sebald to confirm that the quartet of exiles' testimonies so artfully braided into The Emigrants tell real stories about real people... The wonderful alchemy via which Sebald transmuted the found material of actual biography and history into fiction that kept faith with truth explains much of his appeal.’ — Boyd Tonkin, The Independent 2 December 2011, Books of the Week
- ‘More than two-hundred pages are dedicated to a stunning bibliographic survey of Sebald... If the reader wants to see what Sebald said about, say, Theodor Adorno, Jane Austen, Henry Ford, Jean Genet, Gruppe 47, Ernest Hemingway, Adolf Hitler, Herman Melville, Virginia Woolf, animals, butterflies and moths, depression, irony, the Treblinka trials, or countless other names or topics, the index will direct you to the appropriate interviews. Two of my favorite topics in the index were: 'surgery, fear of' and 'greatest wish: to live outside of time'. Hats off to the crew who have given us this monumental bibliographic record!’ — Terry Pitts, Vertigo 24 September 2011
- ‘Para aficionados como yo, es una Biblia.’ — William Chislett, El Imparcial 10 December 2011
- ‘Un somptueux volume collectif – une somme de près de sept cents pages, la bible (plutôt que le modeste handbook annoncé) sur Sebald.’ — Norwich: du temps et des lieux 28 September 2011)
- ‘Special mention should be made of Sheppard’s ‘index to interviews with Sebald’ and his chronology of Sebald’s life, which reconstructs in as much detail as possible the writer’s movements. As with so much of this volume (characterized by how many of its contributors knew Sebald personally), it is clear that these indexes and bibliographies are labours of love; they will stand scholarship in good stead in years to come... An invaluable resource for future research.’ — Ben Hutchinson, Modern Language Review 107.2, April 2012, 659-61 (full text online)
- ‘Saturn’s Moons is the most significant publication on W. G. (Max) Sebald in recent time. Offering a quasi-Sebaldian reading experience of that peculiarly unorthodox kind to the general reader, it is also a tome of considerable scholarship, most particularly in the provision of two remarkable bibliographies which make it a sine qua non resource for scholars of Sebald’s work... A book which will underpin further work on his writing for decades to come.’ — Deane Blackler, German Quarterly 85.2, Spring 2012, 233-34
- ‘How much to reveal about 'W. G. Sebald' is not a simple question. The degree to which he incorporated not just the texts, but also the lives of others into his fictions is greater than we can now... Although Sebald suggests that finding the solutions would be worthwhile, he is suspiciously vague about the effort involved. The Handbook's great value is that it does an immense amount of work for us without revealing too much.’ — Scott Bartsch, Journal of European Studies 42.2, June 2012, 210-11
- ‘By far the most authoritative and complete guide to the literature owned, written and inspired by Sebald, and testament to some extraordinary detective work. It should immediately become the first port of call for anyone setting out to write on Sebald.’ — J. J. Long, Journal of European Studies 42.3, 2012, 17-18
- ‘Besides essays in which Michael Hulse and Anthea Bell address the subject of translating Sebald's work and of collaborations between author and translator, readers of this journal should be intrigued by a hitherto unpublished interview conducted by Jon Cook... [Sebald] reflects on his decision to write in German rather than English.’ — Iain Galbraith, Translation and Literature 22.1 (Spring 2013), 137-42
- ‘Und dennoch ist es nicht nur ein Buch von Freunden über einen verstorbenen Autor, sondern ein Handbuch im besten Sinne des Wortes. Auf höchstem Niveau gibt es Auskunft über Sebalds Kindheit im Allgäu und seinen akademischen Werdegang; über seine Arbeitsweise als Universitätslehrer und die polemische Stoßrichtung seiner wissenschaftlichen Veröffentlichungen; über Sebalds Umgang mit Photographien, die einen integralen Teil seines Werkes bilden; es bietet einen profunden Einblick in seine private Bibliothek und den Stellenwert, den bestimmte Autoren in ihr halten; führt in den Nachlass ein, der in Marbach liegt und verschwiegen ist wie Sebald selbst es war; gibt Schriftstellern und Dichtern das Wort, die Texte über Sebald geschrieben haben; druckt unveröffentlichte Stücke aus Sebalds Nachlass ab; enthält Bibliographien zu seinem Gesamtwerk und der dazu erschienenen internationalen Sekundärliteratur, die bis ins Jahr 2011 Anspruch auf Vollständigkeit erheben dürfen und 170 große, dichtbedruckte Se’ — Jakob Hessing, Arbitrium 34.2, 2016, 246-50
- ‘The volume offers an abundance of previously unpublished textual and visual material — much of it from Sebald's literary estate but also photographs, letters, syllabi, and personal testimonies provided by friends and others — to offer glimpses into the author's personal and professional life and to contextualize and historicize further his work as a writer, teacher, academic, and critic.’ — Markus Zisselsberger, Monatshefte 104.4, 2012, 685-88
Mediterranean Travels: Writing Self and Other from the Ancient World to Contemporary Society
Edited by Patrick Crowley, Noreen Humble and Silvia Ross
Legenda (General Series) •26 August 2011
Portuguese Modernisms: Multiple Perspectives on Literature and the Visual Arts
Edited by Steffen Dix and Jerónimo Pizarro
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2011
A Captive of the Dawn: The Life and Work of Peretz Markish (1895-1952)
Edited by Joseph Sherman, Gennady Estraikh, Jordan Finkin and David Shneer
Studies In Yiddish 9•25 March 2011
- ‘This volume is not only the best study of Markish’s career available in English — it is the only one. And yet, one could not hope for a better treatment of its worthy subject... Given Markish’s signiicance to the development of Yiddish literature in Poland as well as the Soviet Union, there is no doubt that any scholar of Yiddish will consult these essays frequently and gratefully.’ — Marc Caplan, Slavonic and East European Review 92.2, April 2014, 321-23 (full text online)
The Libertine’s Nemesis: The Prude in Clarissa and the roman libertin
James Fowler
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2011
- ‘The beguiling cover of this Legenda volume is well matched by the book’s contents. Fowler’s thesis is an original and well-argued one: the establishment of a symbiotic relationship between the libertine and the prude in a number of key eighteenth-century texts... the argument is persuasive and elegant, and we are swept along by the author’s enthusiasm for his subject.’ — John Phillips, French Studies 66.3, July 2012, 402
German Women's Writing of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Future Directions in Feminist Criticism
Edited by Helen Fronius and Anna Richards
Legenda (General Series) •26 August 2011
- ‘The volume will be of great use to students and researchers alike, as a source of well-written critical scholarship and of pointers to severe deficits in current research. It offers productive methodologies for taking the enquiry forward in areas vital to a fuller, more nuanced understanding of the place of women writers as part of the whole picture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cultural history in the German-speaking lands.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 48.4 (October 2012), 489
- ‘Thus the book’s structure, like its title, ultimately collapses: the future has not yet happened. Yet it is glimpsed here—and it will indeed necessarily entail killing off and reviving the female author and the female reader, undoing and redoing gender, sexuality, and herstory, embracing pluralism and firing the canon. And it will only have been achieved once the gatekeepers become contributors and all critics—including men—are doing feminist criticism.’ — Robert Gillett, Modern Language Review 109.2, April 2014, 547-48 (full text online)
Alienation and Theatricality: Diderot after Brecht
Phoebe von Held
Studies In Comparative Literature 17•25 March 2011
- ‘This is a rich and rewarding study that opens up important new perspectives not only on its two chosen thinkers, but also on the questions of acting both onstage and in society more generally.’ — Joseph Harris, French Studies 66.4 (October 2012), 557
- ‘[Held's] general principle is surprisingly simple and compelling: While the 'self-alienating artifice' of Diderot's calculating actor succeeds for the most part at immedsing the audience to identification and illusion, there are moments at which it suddenly comes to the fore... Jolted by this 'sudden emergence of alienation', the spectator is now 'faced with her own involvement in the operation of delusion'.’ — Florian Nikolas Becker, Brecht Yearbook 37 (2012), 253-58
English Responses to French Poetry 1880-1940: Translation and Mediation
Jennifer Higgins
Legenda (General Series) •12 May 2011
- ‘The account of Huxley’s version of Rimbaud’s ‘Les Chercheuses de poux’ is particularly fine, and laurels awarded to Beckett’s ‘Drunken Boat’ are shown to be well deserved. In this respect, Higgins’s readings are consonant with some of her own general arguments, for she frequently conveys the sense of a critical mind finding out more about the original text, as well as testing the qualities of the translation. In her hands, both French and English texts are made to speak to and of each other.’ — Matthew Creasy, Translation and Literature 21, 2012, 255-61
- ‘This rewarding book deftly handles — and illuminates — a wide range of sources... a tantalizing taste of a fascinating area for further research.’ — Adam Watt, Modern Language Review 107.3, July 2012, 897-98 (full text online)
- ‘In the years preceding the Second World War [...] a diminution in the quantity of translated material is compensated for by a greater acknowledgement of the centrality of translation to the development of national — and transnational — literary cultures. This study is to be commended for its consistent advocacy and demonstration of that centrality.’ — Michael G. Kelly, French Studies 66.4 (October 2012), 572
Dante in Oxford: The Paget Toynbee Lectures
Edited by Tristan Kay, Martin McLaughlin and Michelangelo Zaccarello
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2011
- ‘A welcome addition to the ocean of Dante studies.’ — John A. Scott, Modern Language Review 108.2, April 2013, 648-50 (full text online)
Proust Writing Photography: Fixing the Fugitive in À la recherche du temps perdu
Áine Larkin
Legenda (General Series) •26 August 2011
- ‘Throughout the volume, Larkin’s close readings often provide fresh insights by situating themselves at a tangent to existing interpretations. In this way they form an individual trajectory, turning the study into a valuable source of orientation and stimulation for experts and newcomers to the field alike.’ — Katja Haustein, French Studies 67.1 (January 2013), 115-16
- ‘Áine Larkin makes an excellent contribution to this already well established field of study with this systematic analysis of the manifold ways in which Proust appropriates photography for both thematic and stylistic purposes.’ — Marion Schmid, Modern and Contemporary France 20.4 (September 2012), 514-16
Syntactic Borrowing in Contemporary French: A Linguistic Analysis of News Translation
Mairi McLaughlin
Research Monographs in French Studies 30•12 May 2011
- ‘Throughout, the author demonstrates a strong awareness of methodology, a solid grounding in the relevant literature, and a laudable attention to detail... Deserves to become a point of reference for future studies within the field.’ — Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen, Modern Language Review 107.4, October 2012, 1248-49 (full text online)
- ‘Works like this, at the crossroads of linguistics and translation studies, are all too rare. The potential of the work reported here to inspire further investigation is considerable.’ — Nigel Armstrong, Modern and Contemporary France 20.2 (February 2012), 267-68
- ‘En somme, cet ouvrage est très convaincant par sa rigueur (méthodologie, présence de graphiques), son aspect novateur et sa clarté. Il peut servir de référence aux chercheurs et doctorants de diverses disciplines telles que l’évolution du français contemporain, le contact des langues (en particulier la transmission de l’emprunt syntaxique) ou la traduction.’ — Michèle Vincent, French Studies 66.4 (October 2012), 594-95
- ‘Es wäre wünschenswert, wenn künftig weitere weit verbreitete und unkritisch rezipierte Thesen zu sprachlichen Fragen einer ebenso gründlichen, sine ira et studio durchgeführten Untersuchung unterzogen würden.’ — Jörn Albrecht, Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur 123.2, 2013, 200-05
- ‘...Excellente connaissance du sujet, abondance et pertinence des références, clarté des démonstrations, exhaustivité de l’analyse, structuration de l’exposé, soutien statistique, sophistication linguistique et aisance de style. Les introductions à chaque chapitre méritent à elles seules la lecture, car elles permettent de découvrir ou de réviser l’essentiel sur l’emploi de l’adjectif, du passif et du participe présent en français.’ — Alain Thomas, Journal of Language Contact 6, 2013, 203-05
- ‘An original insight, especially considering her field work in a press agency for the data collection. In fact, dealing with the linguistic impact of news translation, the study provides evidence of the detrimental impact of lack of regulations, ethics and professionalism in news translation.’ — Federico M. Federici, The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory 21.1, 2013, 112
Borges and Joyce: An Infinite Conversation
Patricia Novillo-Corvalán
Studies In Comparative Literature 24•4 February 2011
- ‘Deftly employs cultural, geographical, biographical, linguistic and literary analysis; in doing so, it provides readers with a better understanding of Joyce, Borges, and the connections between them.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 49.2 (2013)
- ‘...The engaging central thesis, of the surprisingly fruitful interaction between these two seemingly dissimilar authors.’ — Ben Bolig, Modern Language Review 108.3, 2013, 983-85 (full text online)
- ‘This is an ambitious and satisfying book that illuminates, through the prism of Borges, the work of Joyce and, through Joyce, the work of Borges... It is a very welcome and important addition to our libraries.’ — Lucia Boldrini, James Joyce Quarterly 49.3/4, May 2014, 689-92
Jacques Derrida and the Institution of French Philosophy
Vivienne Orchard
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2011
- ‘Orchard’s careful attention to significant details promises to refresh thinking in an important area of theory and philosophy.’ — Sarah Wood, French Studies 66.4 (October 2012), 581
Reading Games in the Greek Novel
Eleni Papargyriou
Legenda (General Series) •25 March 2011
Ugo Foscolo and English Culture
Sandra Parmegiani
Italian Perspectives 20•12 May 2011
- ‘Partecipe di un consistente e costruttivo dialogo critico con altri studiosi, Parmegiani non trascura di sondare, nel corso della propria disamina, il circostante terreno di ricerca presentando al lettore un resoconto attento ed attuale. Il libro costituisce in questa prospettiva un compendio indispensabile agli studi, tuttora in fieri, sui variegati rapporti intrattenuti da Foscolo con la cultura inglese. A questo elaborato mosaico Parmegiani ha avuto il merito di aggiungere con la propria indagine un autorevole tassello mancante.’ — Maria Giulia Carone, Annali d'Italianistica 2012
- ‘A well written and highly informative account of Foscolo's career... Most readers of The Shandean will think of Foscolo predominantly as the translator of Sterne: it is fascinating to read of his attempts to make a literary career in London in the last decade of his life where, encouraged by John Cam Hobhouse, he crosses paths (and often swords) with such luminaries as Wordsworth, Byron, Samuel Rogers, Thomas Moore, John Murray, and Sir Walter Scott.’ — W. G. Day, The Shandean 167-72
- ‘This book proves itself to be extremely important for a more global and at the same detailed analysis of Italian proto-Romanticism and Romanticism from a comparatively European viewpoint... The result is a convincing portrayal of Foscolo’s relationship with English culture, which will surely be helpful for both the Italian and Anglo-Saxon scholarships in Italian studies, as well as for the broader community of scholars in eighteenth-century and Romantic studies.’ — Fabio Camilletti, Journal of Modern Italian Studies 18.3, 2013, 364-65
The Printed Media in Fin-de-siècle Italy: Publishers, Writers, and Readers
Edited by Ann Hallamore Caesar, Gabriella Romani, and Jennifer Burns
Italian Perspectives 21•6 July 2011
- ‘The portrayal of the fin-de-siècle offered by this volume is more articulate and dynamic than the one traditionally depicted... The compelling issues tackled in this volume, together with its thought-provoking approaches, cast a new light on some significant traits of fin-de-siècle Italy.’ — Morena Corradi, Journal of Modern Italian Studies 17.5, 2012, 650-652
- ‘This collection cogently illustrates how the emerging study of material culture can illuminate fundamental discussions on the development of a national identity... Rather than focusing narrowly on authors and their literary production, these essays paint a vivid picture of the broader world in which these writers lived. In doing so, they show the development of national and cultural identification becoming inextricably linked to the rise of print media and the cultural industry as a whole.’ — Laura A. Salsini, Italica 2013, 304-05
- ‘This excellent collection of essays (thirteen in all, five written in Italian, eight in English) focuses on the context in which printed media (books, magazines, news- papers, journals) were shaped and appeared at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The text as material object is privileged, while the approach is interdisciplinary. The end result is a different, and more complete, appreciation of the various texts considered here than would be afforded by an analysis confined to content or style.’ — Ursula A. Fanning, Modern Language Review 109.3, July 2014, 824-26 (full text online)
Victor Hugo, Jean-Paul Sartre, and the Liability of Liberty
Bradley Stephens
Legenda (General Series) •12 May 2011
- ‘Liberty may be a liability, but in Hugo and in Sartre it has two strong, subtle, and surprisingly complementary exponents. For the detail of its analyses and for the breadth of its final perspectives, this volume is, therefore, a welcome addition to the Legenda imprint.’ — Owen Heathcote, French Studies 66.3, July 2012, 422-23
- ‘Bradley Stephens explores unexpected, intriguing connections between Victor Hugo's and Jean-Paul Sartre's visions of liberty in this clearly written study... Brings a unique analysis of Hugo's and Sartre's work, offering insights that may challenge readers to reconsider their previous understandings.’ — Marva A. Barnett, Modern and Contemporary France 20.2, 2012, 281-82
- ‘Stephen’s work provides equally valuable insights for Hugo and Sartre specialists as it does for students of modern culture. Previous scholarship is pleasingly woven into Stephens’s argument and his writing style is quick and fluid, itself more dynamic as the work progresses.’ — Andrea S. Thomas, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 41.3-4, 2013, 326-28
- ‘Informed by the latest literary criticism, up to speed with philosophical debates, knowledgeable on secondary literature in English and in French on both Hugo and Sartre... Stephens sets up a dialogue between Hugo, the nineteenth-century writer and Sartre, whom Foucault (in-)famously referred to as ‘a man of the nineteenth century’... This book is excellent on philosophy of language and moral philosophy, and it should be of interest to scholars of either Hugo or Sartre, or both, as well as to post-modernists interested in human experience and freedom.’ — Jean-Pierre Boulé, Sartre Studies International 19.1, 2013, 91-102
Examining Whiteness: Reading Clarice Lispector through Bessie Head and Toni Morrison
Lucia Villares
Legenda (General Series) •6 July 2011
- ‘By enhancing our understanding of Clarice Lispector’s novels with such an original and indispensable study, Villares demonstrates other unexplored ways through which Lispector broke away from the Primitivist vogue and mulattophilia of her generation of modernistas... During those years of intensively nationalist modernizing projects, performing whiteness included the assimilation of an urban ethos, among other bourgeois life standards. Villares’ study highlights the relevance of Lispector’s work for our comprehension of such deep cultural transformations.’ — Sonia Roncador, Ellipsis 12, 2014, 311-13
The Truth of Realism: A Reassessment of the German Novel 1830-1900
John Walker
Legenda (General Series) •6 July 2011
- ‘An ambitious contribution to a revaluation of German realism that will have to be weighed and taken into account in any further treatment of the topic.’ — Jeffrey L. Sammons, Monatshefte 104.1, 2012, 130-33
- ‘This volume offers a new approach to German Realism and contributes to research that establishes a reading of German Realist literature as in no ways inferior to other European Realist traditions, which has been the dominant viewpoint for decades.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 49.2, 2013, 227
- ‘Cultural studies, systems theory, postcolonial studies, gender studies, media history, and a number of other more recent approaches have given new impetus to research into nineteenth-century Realism and initiated a reassessment of German Realism within the overarching European development from Romanticism to Modernism. Walker’s study of a small number of selected novels by Keller, Raabe, and Fontane makes an interesting contribution to this reassessment by arguing that ‘the distinguishing capacity of German narrative realism, and the source of that realism’s unique contribution to the European tradition’ is the critique of internalized ideology.’ — Dirk Göttsche, Modern Language Review 109.3, July 2014, 847-48 (full text online)