Literature 2013

Literature 2013 press.princeton.edu Contents Featured Books 1 Essays in the Arts 6 Oddly Modern Fairy Tales 9 Writers on Writers 10 Comparative Literature 11 British Literature 12 American Literature & Studies 14 Poetry 16 Biography 21 Translation/Transnation 22 Søren Kierkegaard 23 Of Related Interest 24 Princeton Shorts 28 Index/Order Form 29 Cover image: Victorian wreath made with pages from Great Expectations, created by Megan Fortgang. Photo by Karl Spurzem. New—Fourth Edition The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Roland Greene, editor in chief Stephen Cushman, general editor Clare Cavanagh, Jahan Ramazani & Paul Rouzer, associate editors Harris Feinsod, David Marno & Alexandra Slessarev, assistant editors Through three editions over more than four decades, The Prince- ton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics has built an unrivaled repu- tation as the most comprehensive and authoritative reference for students, scholars, and poets on all aspects of its subject: Praise for previous editions: history, movements, genres, prosody, rhetorical devices, critical terms, and more. Now this landmark work has been thoroughly “An extraordinarily helpful vol- revised and updated for the twenty-first century. Compiled by ume that will save untold hours an entirely new team of editors, the fourth edition—the first of reference time for the student, new edition in almost twenty years—reflects recent changes in the general reader, and the liter- literary and cultural studies, providing up-to-date coverage and ary scholar.” giving greater attention to the international aspects of poetry, all —Modern Language Journal while preserving the best of the previous volumes. “The standard source for informa- At well over a million words and more than 1,000 entries, the tion on the history and criticism Encyclopedia has unparalleled breadth and depth. Entries range of poetry and poetic technique in length from brief paragraphs to major essays of 15,000 words, and theory.” offering a more thorough treatment—including expert synthesis —Booklist and indispensable bibliographies—than conventional hand- “Should delight browsers and books or dictionaries. scholars alike. A must for all This is a book that no reader or writer of poetry will want to be libraries.” without. —Choice Roland Greene is the Mark Pigott OBE Professor in the School of “As essential for any working Humanities and Sciences and Professor of English and Compara- poet as a good dictionary.” tive Literature at Stanford University. Stephen Cushman is the —Writer’s Digest Robert C. Taylor Professor of English at the University of Virginia. “A reference work of distinction Clare Cavanagh is professor of Slavic and comparative literature which all who work in the field at Northwestern University. Jahan Ramazani is the Edgar F. Shan- of literary studies will find non Professor of English at the University of Virginia. Paul Rouzer extremely useful if not, indeed, is associate professor of Asian languages and literatures at the indispensable.” University of Minnesota. —Classical Journal 2012. 1680 pages. Pa: 978-0-691-15491-6 $49.50 | £34.95 Cl: 978-0-691-13334-8 $150.00 | £103.00 press.princeton.edu featured books • 1 Forthcoming Forthcoming Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Italo Calvino Century Letters, 1941–1985 A Surrealist History Selected and with an introduction Derek Sayer by Michael Wood and translated by Martin McLaughlin “This is a fascinating and brilliantly written narrative that combines elements of literary guide, “Calvino liked to present an inscrutable face to biography, cultural history, and essay. Writing with the world, but this literally marvelous collection warm engagement, and drawing on his detailed of letters shows him to have been gregarious, knowledge of Czech literature, art, architecture, puckish, funny, combative, and, above all, won- music, and other fields, Derek Sayer provides a rich derful company, and opens a new and fascinat- picture of a dynamic cultural landscape.” ing perspective on one of the master writers of —Jindřich Toman, University of Michigan the twentieth century. Michael Wood and Martin McLaughlin have done Calvino, and us, a great Setting out to recover the roots of modernity and loving service.” in the boulevards, interiors, and arcades of the —John Banville, author of Ancient Light “city of light,” Walter Benjamin dubbed Paris “the capital of the nineteenth century.” In this eagerly This is the first collection in English of the anticipated sequel to his acclaimed Coasts of extraordinary letters of one of the great writers Bohemia: A Czech History, Derek Sayer argues of the twentieth century. Italy’s most important that Prague could well be seen as the capital postwar novelist, Italo Calvino (1923–1985) of the much darker twentieth century. Ranging achieved worldwide fame with such books as across twentieth-century Prague’s astonishingly Cosmicomics, Invisible Cities, and If on a winter’s vibrant and always surprising human landscape, night a traveler. But he was also an influential this richly illustrated cultural history describes literary critic, an important literary editor, and how the city has experienced (and suffered) a masterful letter-writer. This book includes a more ways of being modern than perhaps any generous selection of about 650 letters, written other metropolis. between World War II and the end of Calvino’s life. Selected and introduced by Michael Wood, Derek Sayer is professor of cultural history at Lan- the letters are expertly rendered into English caster University and a former Canada Research and annotated by well-known Calvino translator Chair at the University of Alberta. Martin McLaughlin. May 2013. 656 pages. 54 halftones. 8 line illus. Cl: 978-0-691-04380-7 $35.00 | £24.95 Michael Wood is professor of English and comparative literature at Princeton University. Martin McLaughlin is the Agnelli-Serena Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Oxford. May 2013. 632 pages. 2 line illus. Cl: 978-0-691-13945-6 $39.50 | £27.95 To receive notices about new books, subscribe for email at press.princeton.edu/subscribe 2 • featured books Forthcoming Paperback Kafka The Decisive Years Reiner Stach Translated by Shelley Frisch Forthcoming “Stach aims to tell us all that can be known about No Joke [Kafka], avoiding the fancies and extrapolations Making Jewish Humor of earlier biographers. The result is an enthralling Ruth R. Wisse synthesis, one that reads beautifully. I can’t say enough about the liveliness and richness of “An essential examination of Jewish humor. Stach’s book. [E]very page of this book feels Ruth Wisse ably traces the subject through high excited, dynamic, utterly alive.” literature and low culture, from Heine to Borat, —Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World offering new and glimmering insights in each case. She takes on the difficult questions, not Reiner Stach worked extensively on the definitive least the one of utility: has humor helped the edition of Kafka’s collected works before embark- Jews, and does it help them still? No Joke is vastly ing on this three-volume biography. erudite, deeply informative, and delightfully July 2013. 584 pages. 37 halftones. written—plus it’s got plenty of good jokes. What Pa: 978-0-691-14741-3 $24.95 | £16.95 more could one ask for?” —Jeremy Dauber, Columbia University Forthcoming Kafka Ruth R. Wisse is the Martin Peretz Professor of The Years of Insight Yiddish Literature and professor of comparative Reiner Stach literature at Harvard University. Translated by Shelley Frisch Library of Jewish Ideas Cosponsored by the Tikvah Fund “A masterpiece of the art of interpretation and of May 2013. 280 pages. 14 halftones. empathy.” Cl: 978-0-691-14946-2 $24.95 | £16.95 —Der Tagesspiegel This volume of Reiner Stach’s acclaimed and definitive biography of Franz Kafka tells the story of the final years of the writer’s life, from 1916 to 1924—a period during which the world Kafka had known came to an end. Stach’s rivet- ing narrative, which reflects the latest findings about Kafka’s life and works, draws readers in with a nearly cinematic power, zooming in for extreme close-ups of Kafka’s personal life, then pulling back for panoramic shots of a wider world scarred by World War I, disease, and inflation. July 2013. 816 pages. 72 halftones. Cl: 978-0-691-14751-2 $35.00 | £24.95 press.princeton.edu featured books • 3 Forthcoming New The Pity of Partition The Story of America Manto’s Life, Times, and Work across the Essays on Origins India-Pakistan Divide Jill Lepore Ayesha Jalal “Jill Lepore is one of our finest historians of the “This lovingly written, informative, and thought- battle over the story called ‘America,’ which, as ful book by Ayesha Jalal is a fitting tribute to the she says, is constantly being fought over and life and work of her great-uncle, Saadat Hasan over. In this stunning collection of essays, Lepore Manto, one of the leading writers of modern makes the case that the rise of democracy is South Asia, on the occasion of his centennial bound up with the history of its reading and birthday. Jalal moves deftly between history, writing. That history is conflicted, ragged, and biography, and literature, experimenting with a contradictory but, in Lepore’s capable hands, as narrative method that succeeds in capturing the gripping and compelling as a novel.” sense of ‘cosmopolitanism in everyday life’ that —Cathy N. Davidson, Duke University Manto championed. The Pity of Partition deserves a wide readership.” From past to present, Jill Lepore argues, Ameri- —Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago cans have wrestled with the idea of democracy by telling stories. In this thoughtful and provoca- Ayesha Jalal is the Mary Richardson Professor of tive book, Lepore offers at once a history of ori- History at Tufts University. gin stories and a meditation on storytelling itself. The Lawrence Stone Lectures Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Profes- March 2013.

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